Adolescents and adults now spend, on average, more than 64 days a year watching television, 41 days listening to the radio and a little over a week using the Internet. Among adults, 97 million Internet users sought news online last year, 92 million bought a product, 91 million made a travel reservation, 16 million used a social or professional networking site and 13 million created a blog.
“The demand for information and entertainment seems almost insatiable,” said James P. Rutherfurd, executive vice president of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, the media investment firm whose research the Census Bureau cited.
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Another site that is moving in the direction of giving you what you like based upon past behavior or selections is StumbleUpon.com.
StumbleUpon uses collaborative filtering, which is just a geeky way of saying it figures out what you like, and delivers it to you, based on what other people like. Amazon.com does a similar thing with book recommendations. On StumbleUpon, as people rate videos, the ratings go into a database. Then, as you rate videos, the service will know what you like and don’t like, and which users have similar taste. It continually refines that information to serve up videos that it believes will match the stuff you like.
“You can stumble, rate and review, and it’s constantly learning and getting you better videos,” said David Feller, the vice president of marketing.
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I want to create a site that sends visitors articles, videos, tips, advice, maps, directions, and so on based upon their interests. Much like Amazon suggests you books based upon what you’ve purchased, but I’d like to try to set this up so it’s more intimate or precise. I’m thinking about starting it out via a manual process, sending friends links to articles, videos and so on that I know they’d be interested in and then setup a number of channels that can opt in and out of. There must be a way to do this. This idea seems related to John Battle’s concept of clickstreams and Database of Intentions, where search engines gather information about you based on your searches. Or why can’t Comcast cable make suggestions based on what I’ve watched and for how long. Why can’t they send me a reminder or let me know when something is on that I’d like but haven’t yet set a reminder for. An example, Arsenal versus Chelsea was on and I didn’t know about it until late in the game, I then texted a fiend and told him it was on. A great game that I was very happy to catch. This will all be automated soon. It won’t be creepy it will be genius.
I’m also all about more information, movie reviews from a number of sources and insider tips from people who have been to the place you’re going. I often check to see when goals were scored for instance, on the internet when they’re re-showing a soccer game. I also love the info button with Comcast cable, I only see more of that coming. From Tivo to DVR machines…
As a webmaster and SEO marketer you can push new articles via Digg.com, StumbleUpon, and other social network type of sites. This is a great way to develop viral traffic. The key is being the first to post and make sure your content is worth the effort. If the article is not interesting and run of the mill it’s not worth it. You don’t necessarily need to do viral marketing all the time but when something clicks, a new tool or piece of information is worth sharing with others, then go for it. Try to push the article or say video in all the avenues you can to drive traffic to your site and generate a buzz. To see how you’re doing check out the SocialMeter.com
I’m sure Yahoo could purchase the company for a good price right now since Adbrite is still growing but hasn’t reached a peak stage where they might not want to sell or it would be prohibitive to Yahoo. A purchase of the company would enable Yahoo to get their publisher’s program to the next level, or off the ground I should say, their ‘Content Match’ beta program, the answer to Google’s Adsense program.
I’d like to see a big company take over Adbrite and bring it to the next level, try to compete with Google. Right now, Adbrite is an excellent company but capable of so much more. One of the big issues with Adbrite is the lack of transparency in terms of where your traffic is coming from, how much US traffic exactly will you get? But that said, that’s why you can find great rates and make the most of it. I’d just like to see Adbrite, with the influx of money from a big company, offer more tools, stats, and layout options, become a great publishers option, on the level of Google’s Adsense.
As of December 2006, AdBrite served ads on 790,445,963 pageviews, from 30,667 sites.
I’ve used Adbrite a number of times as an advertiser, brokering offers and buying traffic for niche sites, and had some great success. They have a passionate team of people and they work with you rather than against, they try to keep you happy. Plus, Adbrite allows you to test sites for one day, a week, a month, or even longer if you negotiate. They’re not like other ad networks where there are minium buys and no way to gauge the quality of traffic. Adbrite is a goldmine if you want to get a ton of cheap traffic. Adbrite is a goldmine if you know how to broker offers. Yahoo, with their new Panama platform, could make strides to catch up will Google with a purchase like this. Game on.
I still thing content is king but more so relevant and fresh content is the king of all kings let’s say. If you become an expert in a niche, whether it’s investing in property or say soccer news and training tips, and begin posting and writing articles about these areas your site will gain search engine positions for the articles you write. Especially if they are current and noteworthy articles or posts. That’s why it’s good to read a lot and do your research, keep up with magazines, newspapers, and other sites in your area, for breaking news. Is it a new team coming to your area or Manchester Untied doing a tour of the US? Is it a hot new real estate market, a newspaper or magazine article about a new location? Write about the news and give your own thoughts. Be the first site to post it.
The other key aspect of the internet is skipping steps. How can I create a site that will save people time? What does a site need that will speed up the users experience and help them get what they are looking for? You tell me….
Below is the rough breakdown of browser usage stats for internet users, as of September 1, 2006.
Internet Explorer: 82.10
FireFox: 12.46
Safari: 3.53
Netscape: .85
Opera: .64
Mozilla: .25
FireFox is making some headway but IE is still the main browser for most internet users. Make sure to test your site on both FireFox and the various Internet Explorer browsers to make sure there aren’t any inconsistencies in font size or type.
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