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The End of the Destination Web Era
Young Urban Professional
Photo credit: Décoration du château de Versaille by Djof
For the last 15 years marketers lived like kings online. We built ornate palaces in homage to ourselves in the form of web sites and micro sites. Each acts as a destination that embodies our meticulous choice of aesthetics, content and activities.
We still put a lot of time, effort and money into erecting these palaces, much as Louis XIV did in planning Versailles. And, for the most part we have been rewarded handsomely for our efforts. For years consumers flocked to our sites, reveled in all we had to say, played with our toys and, sometimes, were motivated enough as a result to buy our stuff.
That's what life was like in the good old days. But now we're in the age of online enlightenment. People (rightfully) have reasoned that they too can be creators, not just consumers. Content choices became infinite and peers are trumping pros.
After years of erosion it now it appears the destination web era is drawing to a close. This a trend that digital thinkers like Om Malik have long noted. In fact, the numbers prove it.
In March the average American visited a mere 111 domains and 2,500 web pages, according to Nielsen Online. What's worse, our attention across these pages is highly fragmented. The average time spent per page is a mere 56 seconds. Portals and search engines dominate, capturing approximately 12 of the 75 hours spent online in March. However, people-powered sites like Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube are not far behind, snagging nearly 4.5 hours of our monthly attention.
In the post-destination web era the secret to breaking through won't be advertising. A new study from ARAnet in conjunction with Opinion Research Corporation confirms what PR execs have known for years - we are far more likely to take action when reading online articles that include brand information (51%) compared to search engine advertising (39%) or banner ads (25%).
Unfortunately, digital marketing is still wired for the destination web era. To succeed going forward we have to change our thinking. "Earned media" through direct public engagement in the venues where our consumers spend time will become the only way to truly influence a behavior change. The greatest advantages will go to the first movers who embrace this shift. It's not too late.
Reader Comments (25)
The Path seems to have become the Journey in online
To add a note of optimism, those great ideas that once fueled microsites like "filter for good" and "the Gamekillers" will still export well on their own merit.
Another trend I'm noticing cutting through to a very advertising-averse consumer like me is commissioning cutting-edge creatives for original content. Zach Galifiganakis (sp?) did a spot for Absolut Vodka that was outrageously clever and I heard about it through Merlin Mann.
Similar to that and some of the funny product-placement bits on 30 Rock, I can see the people behind College Humor or a podcast like Jordan Jesse GO! being retained for such an endeavor to get picked up by the increasingly powerful portals.
Again, great article!
Eric
I would suggest the real shift that is upon us, is more like 'the end of search era' and is being replaced by information coming to us on our terms. Rather than us having to go looking for information, it comes to us.
On the larger question of advertising and business models:
Identity management and trusted identities remain a dream online. The notion that brands mentioned in context is interesting but hardly indicative of a destination making event. It is too easily gamed, without trust. I look at the number of requests of merchants to my own banking blog. Some are are context, most are not. Some I pay attention to and many end up as spam. The most interesting finding for me is that many of the contacts are from PR firms, not from the firms employees. Some are clearly tied into the company, and part of the strategy, while others are on a campaign.
All this to say that the underlying theme in this post, that we are close a new business model that might support a web services world that comes to the user is premature.
Earned media is going to be hard to generate in a publishing climate that doesn't have advertising to fund it.
Do you have more data on the numbers around domains and pages visited? I looked on Nielsen but could only find January; is there a chart showing this trend over a longer period of time? Thanks.
Eliot
The End of the Webpage?(from the thin skull blog)
Recently...very recently, because it's the Internet, Steve Rubel wrote a piece entitled, “The End of the Destination Web Era.” In it, he argues that the webpage as an advertising tool is dead and has been dead for a while now. People want “direct engagement” from Internet sites, that's why Twitter and Facebook are so popular right now. I'm not sure if webpages are dead, but they're certainly not as important as they once were, if they ever were that important from a marketing standpoint. The online community wants to participate when they're online, but they also want static, one-sided information as well. So maybe webpages can still play a part in marketing, just as long as businesses and organizations are 'engaging' their potential client base outside their static webpages. Webpages don't have to be dead, they can be an important part of online marketing, especially when you link to your webpage from an interactive, social networking site. Your webpage becomes a profile page that gives more information about you and the services you offer than the typical social networking profile allows.How do you 'engage' your potential clients outside your webpage? Well, you could twitter, facebook, and feed your friends short blurbs and links, but are those users potential clients necessarily? Or are they just people that want to follow and network with as many people as possible. How can you be sure that all that twittering and facebooking is going to work? It is time consuming after all; and distracting too. That's where question and answer, industry-specific websites come in. If you're on a site like this one there's no question that you're interested in the law, or that you may need legal representation now or in the future. It is a legal site after all. Why would you be here if you're not interested in the law and how it affects your life? And what better place for lawyers to 'engage' their potential clients?
Nancy KinneyAdviceScene FounderDemocratizing the law one question at a time
Thanks,Scott FoxAuthor, e-Riches 2.0http://www.scottfox.com/eriches-marketing-book.html
I don't have a recent trendline but I did dig up some stats from March 2000.
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:3GFdAX3xRBkJ:www.clickz.com/348081+netratings+%22march+2000%22+duration&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
The average time then was 53 seconds (this is just at-home data, but at-home for March 09 is broadly in line with combined home/work in the Nielsen stats).
It doesn't seem to me like attention spans per page are shrinking or growing much - what has jumped over the last decade (as the giant portals have declined in influence) is the number of domains and pages visited.
This was a great article though I had to disagree with your point that the Destination Website is Dead. I think it's just evolving and needs to continue to evolve as the interactive medium integrated social media, mobile, etc.
I actually blogged about why I think both you and Joe Jaffe are wrong that the website is dead on our blog here:
http://weareorganizedchaos.com/index.php/2009/05/05/joe-jaffe-and-steve-rubel-are-wrong-the-website-is-not-deadjust-evolving/
Matt
If the blogger is being paid to write a review, it loses the credibility and authenticity of the blogger. If we're paid to tweet, people will soon see our Twitter username as a spammer.
What will then be the evolution of ads online?