Faced with the 21^st-century flood of content, how do you decide which articles, blogs, videos, and/or podcasts are worth your time and attention?

According to public relations exec and blogging guru Steve Rubel, we are entering the “Validation Era” in which a content-overwhelmed public will use four influencers—the “media cloverleaf”—to determine what they should bother with.

• Traditional media (we at Inc. are grateful for that);

• “Tradigital” media such as Politico and TechCrunch;

• Owned media that behaves like traditional media (think Symantec’s threat alerts for instance);

• Their social networks.

Having come to this conclusion, he’s decided to shut down his previous blogs and start a “fresh new site” on the future of media at Tumblr—which, he says, does a better job of sitting at the intersection of these four influencers than any other.

It’s a pretty interesting concept and one you should consider when planning your own digital marketing.

Read more about it at The Next Web ^[1].