Forum Moderators: skibum
- Users are spending less time on several of the biggest Web portals ("Time on site" for Yahoo and AOL has dropped about 10% in the last year; Microsoft's MSN Live is down about 8%.)
- Recognizing that "the Internet is being built and is scaling faster than any one property" is, the leaders (such as Google, Yahoo, and AOL) are "changing their business models to have models which are consumer driven, not property driven."
The article goes on to say that ad networks, such as AdSense and DoubleClick, are a response to demand by advertisers. It uses the example of an advertiser's trying to reach Seattle-area residents who'd like to travel to Svalbard (an Arctic island): "On a portal you might find 10. On a network 100 times larger, you'd find 1,000 without changing your campaign."
The article is interesting in light of another thread [webmasterworld.com] that's being featured on Webmaster World at the moment, which mentions that most ad sales are to the top 50 (and even the top 10) Web properties.
The article is here [washingtonpost.com] at Washingtonpost.com; to read it, you'll need to register at no cost.
You probably knew it already but a definite must read.
Didn't need to register for the article. I'm not in the States however.
But the total time spent at Yahoo and AOL dropped about 10 percent, while Microsoft's MSN-Windows Live services saw an 8 percent decline.
I never understood the appeal of portals. The only portal I ever wanted was a search engine.
But as audiences disperse, advertisers have become reluctant to concentrate their spending at a traditional portal.
No doubt.
consolidation could hamper flexibility, said Jason Turner, vice president for interactive at advertising agency Ignited.
Not sure about that. With keyword-targeting networks, there's unlimited flexibility to ad campaigns. You can target any words and use any format (text/graphics/video).
p/g
