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Friday
- May 26, 2000
Media Websites Must Change
Strategy to Succeed
Web media sites that have yet
to achieve a dominant position in their categories must
change strategies and deliver more
focused content while joining "invisible networks,"—those
that allow them to aggregate multiple audiences for advertisers
and retailers—according to new research released today
by Jupiter Communications, the worldwide authority on Internet
commerce. The research, unveiled during the opening presentation
of the flagship Jupiter Consumer Online Forum showed that
almost half of US online consumers prefer more targeted
affinity/genre
sites over general-purpose portals, while 39 percent of
those consumers gravitate towards familiar off-line brands.
Jupiter surveyed approximately
1,500 online consumers on the way in which they selected
their online media source, 46 percent of respondents indicated
a preference for more specialized sites. Twenty-six percent
liked sites focused on a single topic or genre, such as
sports or health, whereas 11 percent favored affinity sites
that cater to a given audience, such as young families
or boomers.
"Even in the limitless
arena of the Internet, consumers spend most of the time
on 20 or fewer sites," explained David Card, director
of Jupiter's Content and Programming services. "The
leading general portals—America Online, Yahoo!, and MSN—have
opened a sizable gap between themselves and their competitors,
each averaging above 50 percent reach of the online audience.
Sites that hope to capture a meaningful relationship with
the rest of the audience must create invisible networks
that cross media and audience."
Invisible networks allow sites
to deliver critical mass to their advertising and commerce
partners by pooling large shares of smaller audiences while
at the same time retaining the higher revenues associated
with specialized audiences. "Targeted online advertising
has always commanded higher cost per thousand (CPM) fees
than run-of-site placement. While premiums vary widely
by site, they range from 25 percent to six times as much
with affinity portals positioned to exploit this demand
for targeted marketing," added Card. "Further,
retail partners will pay more for the higher conversion
rates delivered by these focused audiences."
CNET: Majority of B2B Firms
to Vanish
The majority of B2B firms will simply vanish within the
next two years, according to a CNET article. This is apparently
the consensus from the Association of Strategic Alliance
Professionsals Sumit, being held in San Francisco.
According to the article "Shakeout
Looms Over B2B Market,"
"Government antitrust investigations
into online exchanges and viscious talent poaching among
business e-commerce companies and their clients are the
main culprits in draining enthusiasm from the sector. Since
the beginning of the year, Wall Street has smacked B2B
stocks harder than almost any other business category.
Such disdain is a dramatic reversal
from five months ago, when Wall Street touted B2B as the ne
plus ultra investment segment and pushed company valuations
to unprecedented levels."
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