Scan-N-Land

Bigger numbers, more niches

Harken back to the early days of the Internet: users were few and content with any real reach had to have mass appeal. Not anymore, says Wired's Clay Shirky:

That was when 36 million people were online. Now that more than a billion people have access to the Web, there is no longer a trade-off between size and specificity. The basic math is simple: A tiny piece of an immense pie is huge.

The huge number of Web users now means that niche Web sites on narrow topics net impressive Web traffic. Shirky calls these audiences "meganiches" and says they will have enormous impacts on business and culture.

Common characteristics among meganiche sites are their use of user-generated content and penchant for focusing in on the arcana of otherwise mundane topics. Through Gaia Online, users create customizable anime-style avatars, chat in forums and interact with others in a multi-user role-playing game all in an environment inspired by Japanese animation.

Loyalty is another defining aspect of meganiche sites. Gaia’s 5 million registered users – “Gaians” – are responsible for a substantive portion of the site’s more than 200 million daily page views.

Shirky echoes arguments made by fellow Wired writer (and Editor-in-Chief) Chris Anderson in his book, "The Long Tail." Anderson argues (read his Wired article to get a synopsis of the key points he lays out in his book) that the Web lowers barriers that until now required distributors to create lowest-common-denominator content. Gaia Online’s creators can match their supply to the demand created by a global community of Japanese animation fanatics.

Shirky raises an important caveat for those of you inspired to go out and create the Web’s next spontaneous hit: Internet traffic won’t continue to grow at the pace it has over the past decade, so site creators will have to compete with one another more and more for page views.
- Milo Sybrant

posted by Mark H. @ 11/08/2006 07:03:00 AM