Tiny Sites Aren't Small Potatoes

xtrucial writes "Jakob Nielsen of usability fame has a new article up about the perhaps-unexpected power of tiny websites: 'Considering that the Web as a whole will have about 4 trillion page views this year, the [low-traffic] sites might seem irrelevant with their pitiful millions of page views. But within their niche they dominate.'" (In particular, Nielsen is talking about weblogs.)

Comments

It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Often when I use Google to search for something obscure, there's one or two people that have written something truly informative/helpful about it. More often than not, it's someone's blog.

Popular Science's Best Weblog:

[seanthenerd]

Slashdot!

From the article:
Call it a guilty pleasure. You're not necessarily attracted to it, but you can't resist it's charm. Constantly updated with info from dark corners of the web you wouldn't otherwise visit, Slashdot is still the most recognized and informed science-related blog on the net. Intelligent [Ha! ...just kidding!] musings ramble from general science to space to biotech. Recommended dose: twice a day.

Three cheers for Slashdot!

(It's on page 98 of the July edition, if you're looking for it.

Here's why small works

[FunWithHeadlines]

"Small sites speak directly to the specific needs and interests of a committed user community, and thus have much higher value per page view. A site on growing blueberries can be a must-read service for people who farm them, and thus of immense value as a place to promote blueberry-farming equipment. "

The big boys probably cannot be bothered to put up a site on growing blueberries. Where's the profit in it? Oh sure, if one corner of one portion of one of their consumer outlets of the corporate spigot wants to do a piece on blueberries because their latest polling found a 3.4% increase in interest in a key demographic in a semi-important market for them, they will post some corporate-ugly site on blueberries.

Meanwhile, the guy or gal who really enjoys growing blueberries will put up a site out of the love of the activity -- and it will show in the way they write about blueberries. Those who are interested will seek that site out rather than the Blueberry, Inc. (R) (all rights reserved) (copy anything from us and feel our lawyer's wrath) site. It only gets 100 or 200 hits a day? The site owner is thrilled.

People speaking to people directly. That's the Web, that's what it's for, that's what the megacorps would love to curtail or corral. But the Web will always be about people speaking to people. In that context, small works.

Re:Here's why small works

[Tablizer]

Meanwhile, the guy or gal who really enjoys growing blueberries will put up a site out of the love of the activity

Fanatics have an advantage over commercial entities in that they spend time on something that may not otherwise be profitable. It is not just being small, it is caring more about subject X than about money.

Much of the work on open-source is driven by people who hate Microsoft more than they like money, for example. (I am not saying that hatred of MS is the only reason.)

I don't understand.

[ajuda]

The article says (yes I RTFA):

1. Big sites have generic content
2. Small sites have specific content
3. Advertisers will advertise on small sites because they have "targeted viewership"

Ok, anyone ever hear of economies of scale? Let's say I have a site that is super-duper specialized. It only has content relating to red staplers with blue logos on them. It's going to be really hard for companies like swingline to

• Find my site
• Negotiate a deal for ad space
• Get the marketing department to cut me a check for 14 dollars each month

They'll go with the big stapler fan sites and avoid all the paperwork. You know it, I know it.

'Cause

[ackthpt]

Remember back when micro-brews emerged?

In case you are too young or didn't notice (while guzzling your Bud Lite and thumping your chest at what a totally unique and studly american you were) hundreds of small brewries emerged over the past couple decades in the USA. Many offered true to the spirit, even abiding by the German Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot), producing quality ales, stouts, lagers, etc. This, as anyone with a lick of sense could see, could lead to serious encroachment of Mega-Brew markets. So they did the american thing and bought a pile of them to hedge their bets and those small brewers who realised they could do fun things with a lot of money sold out.

I have the hunch the big web content sites are aware of how such a similar loss of page views to tiny, informative sites could be attractive. I know some have already sold out, even years ago. However, I also expect that some of these big sites could, and maybe are, running their own mini-sites, to capture that interest in focused, quality content and service. After all, who wants to wade through all the crap they have on their main pages? Not everyone, so why not be all stealthy and play both ends of the field, thus hedging their own bets.