By Linda Holliday, CEO & Founder Citia.

The entire structure of the Internet has radically changed in front of our eyes and we’ve hardly noticed.

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The web started as pages fixed on sites…It was solid.

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Now most experiences are feeds or continuous scrolls. Made out of small flowing pieces. It is liquid.

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The solid web melted into feeds under the heat generated as smartphones and social networks compressed ever more content onto tiny screens.

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Feeds let us comfortably cope with the information deluge by staying in one spot, a site or an app, at which interesting items from any source flow past.

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At first, it was enough to follow some blogs, RSS feeds or Twitter timelines in reverse chronological order. Now, many of our feeds are culled down for us by algorithms using our choices, other’s choices and advertisers specs.

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Feeds save readers time. But publishers and marketers no longer have a clear path to their audience.

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The ecosystem for producing and distributing content has evolved and so too must the content itself. This shift from pages to feeds is a media climate change as important as the transition from radio to television. The medium not only changes how you say things but what you say.

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The melting of the web may well seem to publishers as the last stage of a cataclysmic climate change that will lead to their extinction.

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Websites and pages were hard enough, with infinite competition, declining ad rates, expensive technology, and Google. Now without any control of the content or context that their audience sees, the publishers simply see no solid ground to stand on.

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It’s time to jump in. The water is fine. (Well, at least after you get used to it.) For anyone who survives by communicating, there are a lot of exciting ways to adapt to a more aquatic existence.

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Feeds force you to get to the point, encouraging clarity and wit. With some creativity, even your more complex ideas can be woven in several pieces into the flow.

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Feeds are made for conversations and mashups. Any idea that can be made better by a lot of people contributing can benefit from the chaotic jumble of feeds.

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And for marketers, feeds define not only where advertising will go but what shape ads will take. Ads in feeds need to be in the format readers expect with creative that is at least as compelling as the other items they see.

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In many ways, my thinking about liquid publishing is at the center of the opportunity I see for Citia. It is also reflected in the name of this blog, The Flow, as well as several of my initial posts including “A New Deal for Blogging” and “Why Cards Matter”.

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How are you coping with the melting of the Internet? (Or are you a media climate change denier?)

Either way, brave the waters of The Flow and share you views with me here.

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Read more on http://theflow.citia.com