The battle for power between content creators and content distributors has roiled huge swaths of the media, entertainment, telecommunications, and technology industries since the digital age began in earnest in the early 1990s.  Marketing and creative types typically claim that content always has and always will rule; the more techie-oriented among us generally give the nod to those who control distribution.

The rise of social media, where innovative software platforms almost overnight become their own media companies with users doing the content heavy lifting (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, Digg, etc.), ups the ante dramatically. In this context, BusinessWeek media columnist Jon Fine wonders if the debate is closed: "Millions of people tell stories now--on blogs, on MySpace, on Flickr--for free. There is a surfeit of storytelling. Millions of people do not sit around writing software for free. Advantage: programmers."

Reporting on the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Fine highlights the impressive innovation and equally impressive self-confidence among the tech-minded denizens of social media, but does leave himself some wriggle room in suggesting that the end of the commercial storytellers might not be quite upon us (of course, one would expect nothing less from someone making his living selling content).

From a B2B perspective, though, I wonder if the storyteller's fate is nearly so dire. It's one thing to write off large chunks of  consumer news media and entertainment in the face of freely published commentary and conversation. For business people, however, there is far less tolerance for amateur hour. Business people are as interested as anyone in the ideas, experiences, and insights of their peers; that's why well-organized live events and online business networks and communities are flourishing alongside their more trendy consumerist peers. But so too are professional custom publishing and thought leadership marketing, often tied directly to those events and communities.

The reality is that great content drives great conversation, and busy business folk have little time to prospect for the useful nuggets buried in the largely useless piles on most broad-based sites. Yes, there are great tools for search and filtering, but it's still a whole lot easier to rely on -- and pay for -- the professional version. More sophisticated platforms and distribution channels will always be useful, but, at least in the B2B world, they still mean little without powerful content (i.e., business stories) at the core. Count me as a strong optimist for the future of the storytellers. What about you?