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As Write Angle ramps up for what looks like a very busy 2014, it’s always good to look back at the variety of content development projects we tackled in 2013.

It’s no surprise that Big Data, Cloud and Mobility clients dominated our time.  But we also found opportunities to collaborate with one of the world’s most famous science museums and an emerging talent recruiting organization.

Here’s a short list of key clients and the projects we worked in 2013:

AppSense:   Write Angle was tasked with crafting copy for the company’s MobileNow web site as well as use cases, a comprehensive MobileNow datasheet, a BYOX white paper, a case study and a strategic iOS7 Readiness blog.

Cloudscaling:  Delivering elastic cloud infrastructure to enterprises, service providers and web application providers, Cloudscaling turned to Write Angle to help with a comprehensive web refresh.

Exploratorium:  In our second year of collaboration with one of the world’s most famous science museums, Write Angle was called upon to develop compelling content for the organization’s Annual Fund brochure and Annual Report.  Look for writing samples soon once these pieces are published.

Glassbeam:  Providing business intelligence from machine log data, Glassbeam once again utilized Write Angle to develop a key Service Revenue Generation solution brief as well as a case study featuring Hitachi Data Systems.

Paxata:  Emerging from stealth this year as a highly innovative provider of Adaptive Data Preparation technology for agile business intelligence, Paxata is working with Write Angle in the development of two major contributed thought leadership pieces that will publish in the Q1/Q2 timeframe.  Check back for a look at these compelling articles.  We also created a “Declaration of Data Independence” marketing collateral that supported the company’s coming out party at the recent Strata Conference.

Pertino:  As one of the most innovative providers of cloud networking solutions, Pertino turned to Write Angle to help craft its “Under the Hood” web copy.

SenSage/HEXIS Cyber Solutions:  Write Angle was called upon to deliver a wide variety of content for venerable SIEM vendor Sensage that was acquired by KEYW Corporation/Hexis Cyber Solutions.  We crafted a thought-provoking piece entitled “Defending Against APTs:  Looking For the Big Picture” that ran in the December 20, 2013 edition of SC Magazine.  In addition, Write Angle developed a comprehensive white paper addressing the The Event Analysis and Retention Dilemma.

TalentSky:  Formerly known as Devine Capital, the executive recruiting firm that helped Apple land CEO Tim Cook, TalentSky engaged Write Angle to develop an entirely new web site reflecting the company’s new brand and approach to talent acquisition services.

So what are your content marketing objectives this year?

Big Data is becoming an even bigger deal. And when things get big, it gets more important to stand out from the crowd.

Just this week, a group of Silicon Valley investment superstars, including Ron Conway and Andreessen Horowitz, announced another fund, Big Data Elite, targeted at Big Data start-ups.

 At Write Angle, we’ve done a number of projects for companies in the Big Data realm, including Sumo Logic, Glassbeam and Sensage (now Hexis Cyber Solutions). What’s clear to us is that the term “big data” means different things to different people – which is another way of saying it may mean nothing at all without the proper context. Big Data applications and analysis services run the gamut from information security to customer support to consumer marketing to social media.

As the volume of hype becomes deafening in the Big Data arena, it’s easy for a young company to be grouped together with other perceived players despite having little, if anything, in common with them. Market analysts, journalists and potential customers may not have clue about who does what in which space – or even if the space exists.

Would-be Big Data players must ensure that they differentiate themselves in terms of what market they’re targeting and how they serve that market better than anyone else. If you’re not continuously informing your market about who you are and what makes you worth paying attention to – with constantly refreshed content across your media platforms – competitors who articulate a more compelling story will surely pass you by.

© Photoexplo…

No matter how you define “big data”, the market category is scorching hot.  How hot?  Accel Partners has just launched a new $100 million fund dedicated to funding so-called big data companies.

With its “Big Data Fund 2”, Accel is betting a hefty sum on organizations developing big data solutions.  Their rationale for another infusion of capital in this space?   Quoting Shlomo Kramer, CEO of Imperva and a new advisor to Accel’s big data group, “The enterprise world has already embraced the concept of Big Data and is starting to leverage insights derived from data to solve security and other business problems in ways previously unthinkable.”

Having written extensively about Big Data on behalf of clients including Sumo Logic and Glassbeam,  it’s clear to us at Write Angle that companies vying for market leadership will have a harder and harder time differentiating themselves.  Consider the findings of CB Insights who is tracking this space closely.  According to their big data report, funding for these companies rocketed from 55 deals in 2008 to 164 in 2012.  Over a five-year span, the total sits at 523 deals.

Does this signal market saturation?  Too early to tell, probably. But the takeaway is unmistakable. The dogfight in the big data space will create a deafening amount of noise. And the companies with the best chance of survival will be those that can articulate a compelling, well-differentiated and highly defensible value proposition that will stand the test of time.  And that means content creation efforts needed to tell a compelling story, one with rock-solid business use cases, are nothing less than essential.

iStockphoto, scanrail

Communicating what makes you different in the Big Data analytics market has never been more important than right now. The sheer number of exhibitors staking a claim in the Big Data bonanza at the Strata Conference underscores how quickly competition is emerging in this market.

 This week’s conference showcased a veritable Who’s Who in the industry today, including one of our clients, Glassbeam.  Distinguishing itself among the throng of Big Data players, Glassbeam develops big data applications that help companies improve their business and IT operations by intelligently extracting strategic and tactical insights from huge amounts of multi-structured machine data by way of pre-packaged applications.

 To communicate this market position, we helped Glassbeam by preparing fresh web content, creating a product-management solutions brief, a white paper on multi-structured data and a strategic case study featuring Aruba Networks.

 As the competitive landscape become further cluttered with more vendors, claims and counterclaims, credible content  that sets a vendor apart from the crowd will only grow in importance.