Archive for March, 2008
Login Addiction
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, advertising, login, revenue models, sharing applications, social media
Do you have log in addiction? I’m pretty sure that everyone I know has log in addiction, and the growing influence of social media online is only compounding our problems. Do you find yourself refreshing gmail to see if you have any new emails? Logging into facebook to check the updates? Refreshing your homepage to check for any updates on your RSS? I do, and so do you.
Seemingly every day I come across something new to sign up for, log in to, and then gage my response from. Do any of these applications actually add value to my life? - That is the question on many people’s mind these days, but does it really matter? As all of these new sharing programs emerge and millions of people are logging in every day, what is the world coming to?
My question is how will all of this ever be monetized? There is no way to charge for it, because users will immediately reject that and move to a similar and equally useful/less service that is free. Do we fill the application with advertising? If so, how do we measure the value and effectiveness of these ads? Will marketers really want to pay to reach these tiny niche markets that have suddenly become giant flat, almost muddy, fields?
As I sit here writing this I have 5 other tabs open on my screen, all of them require a log in, a sign up, an email, a profile, something to connect me to all of the anonymous users out there pleasantly sucked in by their ceaseless need to log in. But what is the value of this to me? To you? Facebook has billions of pageviews a month, yet they are losing money. Sure the potential value of those views is huge, but how will they make it happen. What will be done to address these revenue models?
Five websites I’m on. Simultaneously. Two of them have advertising on them. Three of them do not. Why do these websites exist, and how are they going to make money.
If you build it they will come… well if they come, how will you get them to stay long enough to make money? The answer is simple - login addiction. We love connecting ourselves so much, in this increasingly disconnected world, that we will try anything that is fresh, cool and can keep us in touch with the people we care about.
Facebook, Gmail, MySpace, Blogs, Forums, Chat Rooms, Twitter, YouTube, on and on and on, until we stop liking each other. Oh, by the way, don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed…
Busy Week
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life
This has been one heck of a busy week.
Since our new site design has gone live we have doubled our traffic and doubled the interest in our services. This is creating quite alot for me to do, being as there are only 2 of us left in our company. We do the work of about 8 or 9 people, which is fun.
I took a quick break on Sunday and shot up to Hunter Mountain with my friend Mark and my brother. It was a beautiful day; sunny, warm, and the snow was awesome. We beat the mountain up pretty good. Sunday put me in a great mood for the week, which I knew was going to be very busy.
So far this week I have been completely crazy meeting people, updating our sites interface, and trying to keep the rest of my life together. Which has not been easy these days, we just gave a job offer to someone, who accepted the offer, then following a brief of her first day, rescinded her acceptance. Perfect!
I’m going a little crazy these days, my life as an entrepreneur has taken me to the limits of my stress levels, and only now, after 3 months of high tension and near death panic, I can finally feel it relieving. Pheww…
I’m going to the gym, maybe I won’t come back.
Local Search Content Syndication
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Local Search, Syndication, advertising, revenue models, sharing applications
How do large search networks gain their local insight into the real world? Syndication of content from various internet providers, yellowpages, superpages, ultrapages, all kinds of pages. But mostly, out of date pages. Businesses that no longer exist, phone numbers that are no longer valid and addresses that have changed.
How can I the local consumer place my trust in these large companies having up to date, local information on what I am looking for? That is an excellent question, and one that I as a local business man, believe is a question that these jumbo portals don’t have the right answer to.
Smaller, local search companies can monetize their wealth of small business information by expanding paid syndication through these larger outlets. Building a better database of small and local businesses is what these local companies do, and is exactly what they can do for these larger national and international portals.
In these new days of local search, and local information, more and more small business are transitioning their marketing and their budgets online. As this market grows, more information will be available online, and search engines in particular will hold a lot of power over this information. So how can the consumer get the best information infront of them as quickly as possible? Rely on locally based portals who actually operate in the cities they represent.
If there were a way to capitalize on the huge power and reach of these large portals, by incorporating the value of this local information together in a Search Engine Friendly site, giving searching consumers quick and easy access to up to date, accurate and relevant information, this new model would be very valuable indeed.
Now if only I knew someone who could code like a champion…
