We find ourselves at a pivotal moment on the internet. For the first ten years on the internet people applied measurements and marketing values of the previous TV, mass media era. The numbers counted, the hits measured, the viewership sought. These values collapsed rather suddenly. It doesn’t matter how many Facebook friends you have or Twitter followers, and it doesn’t even matter how many hits a web site gets. These quantitative measurements are a relic of the past era. Everyone understands that hits or clicks don’t measure the true audience and are a lousy indicator of a marketing success.
I will give you an example about this young blog. There was and continues a tremendous traffic, 2,500 visitors for last two weeks daily, peaking above 5,000 visitors last Friday and between 5,000 and 8,000 page views a day, this even considering that the site was down for several hours almost every day. But for me the visits are useless. People come to look at the historic photos, they don’t click around and for these visitors this blog is just another page on the internet with amusing pictures, sorry not katz here…
Similarly, the top searched keyword for this blog now is “Karl Marx”. Yes, just because the photo of Marx with his wife is distinct on the first page of the Google image search. Man, I wrote one post about Marx, it wasn’t even about Marx. What use do I have for the international visitors who what to see his photo? What use to I have for someone from Ramallah looking for “plans for the Dome of the Rock” yesterday? Or someone from Jordan looking for “King Hussies’ driver”?
And this is what Seth Godin writes Magic beans, TV and the web:
“TV had magic beans for forty years. For forty years, anyone, even a complete moron, could make a lot of money using TV ads. Buy enough ads, don’t screw up, you’re rich.
The hard part was buying enough ads, but once you did that, victory could be declared.
On the web, there are countless marketers just standing around waiting for someone to hand them the magic beans. And that’s the problem.
Marketing online takes too much measurement, patience, creativity, technical knowledge, flexibility, speed and authenticity. It requires too much thinking and not enough going out for dinner with clients.
Perhaps there will never be magic beans again. Perhaps marketing is about to transition to a new kind of profession, one that requires insight, dedication and smarts.
Or maybe someone will find some magic beans.”
Whatever these “magic beans” are, it’s certain they have nothing to do with visitor traffic or traditional quantitative ratings. The “visitors” are useless, the community is priceless and online is not even the best place to create one. Which brings me to the point of why I write this blog, I write to formulate my ideas.
Further Reading:
Social Networking for the Laid Off and how Blogging Changed in the Last 5 Years
How to Select a Web Host for Dummies (and Very Smart People)
Matt Jones – People and Ideas are Interesting, not Social Media
