From Radio Buttons to Clicks to Apps

As well constructed a paragraph on the electronics of content as you’ll ever see:

Why is it so hard for content makers to create value on the web? Because the web has evolved to minimize content makers’ ability to retain users. Thanks to the power of search, users can bounce from one site to another so effortlessly that it’s tremendously difficult for any one site to monetize their visits.

Arnon Mishkin writing for paidcontent.org on the power of the bundle. What he leaves unsaid but is nonethless true is how painful it is when a content provider gets “unbundled.” Newspapers = the Unbundled. Jobs = the Rebundler. It’s good to be the Rebundler.

6 Responses to “From Radio Buttons to Clicks to Apps”

  1. Lance Johnson says:

    I have noticed in my own experiences with ‘apps’ that I have become averse to parts of the app that take me out of the app. This is a completely different mentality that does not exist in browsers that encourage hopping from site to site via links. Great article.

    • johndthornton says:

      All the more argument, I think, for the notion of “re-bundling.” The app becomes the new walled garden; the more I can keep you (happily) within its confines, the better off I am as a content provider and the happier you are as a reader. Am I thinking abou that right?

      • Lance Johnson says:

        Yes, this is absolutely correct and does not apply exclusively to the content parts of the app. It also applies to the ads contained within an app. Users will not want to be immediatley taken out of an app by clicking on an ad. If I know that I will automatically be taken out of an app by taking a look at what a banner ad has to offer, then I will think twice before clicking the next ad. Although I know that at some point I will have to be taken to an advertiser’s site to complete any transaction I would be much more comfortable checking out an interesting banner ad if the landing page were contained within the app so that I could easily back out if uninterested.

  2. You might be interested in this article about the unraveling of the newspaper bundle.

    http://roberthheath.blogspot.com/2009/07/clueless-in-chicago-unraveling.html

  3. [...] the Economics of Dominance and Bundling I was pleased to read Robert Heath’s comment on my recent blurt wrt to the un- and re-bundling of newspaper content. In it, he directed me to a post of his in [...]

  4. Here’s another nice data point from Michael Learmonth.

    “Consider: In 2005, AOL, MSN and Yahoo accounted for a combined 30% of all time spent on the web in the U.S., according to Nielsen. Today, they account for a combined 17%. In September, the average Facebook user spends 5.5 hours on the social network per month, while MSN users spend 2 hours, Yahoo users spend 3 hours and AOL users spend 2.5 hours.”

    Even the leading (non-newspaper) content aggregators on the internet are struggling to retain their share of users’ attention.

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