Web’s Best Blog

Selling your traffic: the role of content as channels

by Darren

I’m beginning to think of blogs as content channels. A user dials in and selects a channel by URL and expects to receive a certain amount of entertainment, and/or enlightenment. Users can handle a lot of choice, as they prove in every industry. 10,000 channels on one subject is a good starting point, given excellent search tools to help refine the data.

What companies are thinking as content in terms of channels now? Most of them. This week, AOL turned Netscape into a Digg clone and Digg responded by opening up the subjects you can vote on. Both of these developments tell me these two versatile Web 2.0 companies are very focused on a few main channels. My obvious guess is, they need to segment the traffic as well as they can, to maximize the money they’re making. Digg is attempting to leverage their massive size into a revenue stream more befitting their current stature. They also hope to become a lot more influential as a new type of online media company.

Digg and Netscape have hit the nail on the head. All the tagging we’ve seen in the last few years indicate new taxonomies have emerged. And not all of these channels are equal when it comes to wealth creation for the website owner. Finance traffic will tend to pay a lot better than “free downloads” will, so there’s no way to run a web business anymore and ignore the obvious commercial markets.

If big companies are becoming more sophisticated about what type of content they’re delving into, it might mean a smaller market for current content publishers. Or, it could get people used to accepting more and more channels as legitimate information sources. If you can take a blog and make it a trusted info source to visitors, you’re creating a legitimate business operation with extremely high margins, capable of employing yourself and others. The more the AOLs of the world spend right now expanding the reach of blogs, the better for all of us.

What do you think of owning your own broadcast channel?