Stock and Flow

From a blog called Snarkmarket, sorting the 2010 web using economic principles:

There are two kinds of quan­ti­ties in the world. Stock is a sta­tic value: money in the bank, or trees in the for­est. Flow is a rate of change: fif­teen dol­lars an hour, or three-thousand tooth­picks a day. Easy. …

But I actu­ally think stock and flow is the mas­ter metaphor for media today. Here’s what I mean:

Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind peo­ple that you exist.

Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the con­tent you pro­duce that’s as inter­est­ing in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what peo­ple dis­cover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, build­ing fans over time.

… And the real magic trick in 2010 is to put them both together. To keep the ball bounc­ing with your flow — to maintain that open chan­nel of communication — while you work on some kick-ass stock in the back­ground.

A very useful concept. Read the whole thing here. (via)