On content ephemerality

We could classify content based on its ephemerality:

• evergreen (eternal)
• deciduous (eventual decay)
• dayflower (disposable)

"Evergreen" content

"the eternal facts"

• content that usually stays relevant for a long time, if not forever, without any updates, i.e. for common knowledge that rarely changes:
  • mathematics
  • academic papers
  • biographies of deceased persons
  • cooking recipes
• usually located on a "static" page that won't suffer from link rot
• people will bookmark if they find the content useful
• accessible long after its publication date from a stable URL

"Deciduous" content

"the trends" (shelf life on the order of months to weeks)

• content that usually stays relevant only for a while, but reaches an eventual end-of-life, i.e. for knowledge that can change or become obsolete:
  • web development
  • software releases
  • developing stories about major disasters
  • entertainment / travel / restaurant reviews (i.e. trends)
• usually a blog post or a forum post that may suffer from link rot if not posted on a popular website
• people might bookmark temporarily and share if necessary
• accessible long after its publication date but its timestamp remains important
  • content becomes slightly more irrelevant each day

"Dayflower" content

"the news / the sports / the weather" (shelf life on the order of days to hours)

• "du jour" content that usually stays relevant for only a short time period:
  • news stories about recent events
    • developing stories about minor disasters
    • sportswriting
  • statistics at the time
    • financial day-end reports
    • sports league standings
    • the day's weather reports
  • opinions about recent events
• most often appears in blog form
• people least likely to bookmark but most likely to share (especially "gossip")
• possibly accessible long after its publication date via a long URL
  • but could be removed without notice without anyone really caring