Lately, I’ve been trying to be less of a reactionary and say something different for a change, but right now I can’t help myself. I’ve an hour to kill and this beats hoovering or washing up!  Bryan Appleyard wrote an interesting piece today in the Sunday Times, one of those provocative, thought provoking pieces that speaks volumes.

It discusses the very nature of the web and how we use it both as individuals and groups. It comes down very heavily on the side of the line that proposes that web 2.0 is this flattening leviathan that has encouraged individuality and self expression to the detriment of traditional structures of communication. It is also illustrative of a mindset that exists, whereby certain sets of journalists feel threatened and marginalised by bloggers and the general push towards freedom of expression on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Bebo et al.

It’s no surprise of course, newspapers both offline and on are struggling to maintain their place within existing structures. Web 2.0 has steam rolled through traditional advertising models and offline media has found it very difficult to adapt.  The days of a corporations media spend being unquestionably allocated towards some page 2 side column or magazine supplement are fast dwindling as marketing managers come around to the power of online for tracking of ROI.

Of course, broadsheets and red tops have all made the foray into online with mixed results, yet from the tone of Bryan’s piece you’d be fair to conclude that people of his ilk are disappointed by their place within the ecosystem, failing to appreciate the value they get from Google, instead choosing to bemoan the web generally.

You can get a taste for Bryan’s venom on page two in particular.

Institutions — publishers, newspapers, museums, universities, schools — exist precisely because they can do more than individuals. If web 2.0 flattens everything to the level of whim and self-actualisation, then it will have done more harm than good.

I don’t get the whole whim and self-actualisation thing as being necessarily bad, in fact I’d say it’s a force for good, and if anything it shows that institutions like those he refers to need to adapt or put simply, they deserve to die! They all have their place and can continue to thrive in an environment that just so happens to have changed and enabled people to break free of some outmoded sense of  observance of a time that is past. This doesn’t mean that respect is lost or the institutions are devalued and to suggest that they are is just ludicrous. Knowledge, growth, society and people absolutely need more than the sum of a computer, Google, Twitter and Wikipedia to grow and thrive, no one anywhere would be so daft to suggest otherwise, yet ultimately the offline institutions and amongst these I’d include the odd arrogant newspaper that believes it deserves attention and observance, exist to serve the interests of the people who use them. It is not the other way around.

A further objection to the cult’s radical individualism is that it doesn’t have the intended hyper-democratic consequences. Wikipedia, for example, has tackled inaccuracy and subversion by introducing forms of authority and control that would seem to be anathema to its founding ideals. Bloggery is forming itself into big, institutionalised aggregators such as The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast, and remains utterly parasitic on the mainstream media it affects to despise. Even Twitter is already coming to be dominated by conventional, non-web-based celebrity — Oprah Winfrey in the US and Stephen Fry over here.

Whilst a first reaction is one of so bloody what, that view is tempered by the obvious pain that Bryan feels on this, so in that regard, let’s just be fair for a little while longer and address what he says.

Besides the use of emotive vernacular like “the cult’s radical individualism” or fear of the “hyper-democratic consequences” it’s clear that he thinks that the body of work that is Wikipeda ( a non perfect but evolving useful resource) has taken small steps to wrestle with what he perceives as some huge body of non-authoritative inaccuracy (or at least that’s what’s implied) whilst bemoaning that blogging too is slowly evolving into various stables of niche topic powerhouses, obliterating the previous occupants through being fleet of foot in their models. Some might suggest that these Main Stream Media (MSM) that he avers they despise , might just have asked for their loss of market share through arrogant assumptions that they deserved their place unquestionably.  MSM, all of it bar none, has simply been unable to adjust to the model. People on trains given the choice between dirty grubby fingers sullied by print or a clean shiny smart phone to read on a commute into work, are increasingly going for the latter. Papers are either out of date or irrelevant. People can now choose what it is that interests THEM, they do this through vehicles like Twitter and sure, whilst trending features may be an outcome of a crowd mindset, it’s often far better than one placed down from on high by some politically motivated editorial policy.

I’m not going to regurgitate the revolution that Twitter is, breaking news, massive take up, crowd lead charity events etc as that’s all been said and by most it’s valued and appreciated. Bryan’s piece at best, is a clear illustration of the fundamental lack of grasp that people like Bryan have about web 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever you want to call it. It’s akin to a cry of a dinosaur unaware of the impact of the meteor that caused its demise as it choked on a sunlight starved atmosphere, too large to do anything about it, powerful, yet completely powerless to adapt. If institutions like the ones to which Bryan alludes wish to survive, then they need to step up and adapt, else they’ll go the way of the dinosaurs too.

Web 2.0 does drive individuality, absolutely, it frees us up and removes the chains of imposed ways of thinking pushed out through TV and old school journos. That is a blessing, that is the most invigorating fact of life today, that for those who  embrace the opportunities that it presents, stand to reap huge rewards from.  At least, that’s my individualist ‘amateur’ point of view

No related posts.

Any niche can make money

I was on twitter earlier and saw a tweet from Patrick saying that you can’t earn a commission from a car blog.

Whilst I get what he is saying on the traditionally available content and relationship route (CJ.com ) etc, the reality is though that (IMO) you can of course, make money from virtually any subject all you need to do is create the relationships with the suppliers and do what you choose to do well.

It’s an interesting subject and very evident throughout most SERP’s. Successful blogs and sites with developed affiliate models are doing very well indeed, just go do a query for anything, you might find this site called ebay or moneysupermarket or amazon.

The great thing about online is that you don’t need a million quids worth of stock to earn a pound note, you just need to get the positions and add the value. The value add part being the hardest.

It could be interesting to explore it a little and see where it all goes. So let’s look at the thing and consider the sorts of questions someone should ask himself, what are his options, is it a closed playground, those kinds of things.

Local or Global – Macro or Micro Choosing a Start Point

Does he specialise and zoom on in to a particular facet of his target, or does he go broad and address a wider sphere? What will be his USP? How can he improve on what’s out there? Will he get a ROI? How long will it take? Will he lose his investment? Are just a few of the questions our imaginary Mr X would need to ask himself.

He might want to cast his net wide and have as broad a platform as he could. Let’s say he has a blog or a site where he talks about eggs. He talks about the sizes, the types, the suppliers, the politics, the news items, the market, the industry in general. As part of this offering, he might also set up up a little egg wholesaler directory of suppliers categorised into localities and specialisms and discuss the relative merits of each, giving suppliers an option to appear high or low in the offering for a small fee.

Sooner or later he’ll have a resource that’s textually rich. He’d soon find his site ranking for related phrases like “Egg wholesaler location”. Once he’d attained the rankings, it’ wouldn’t be so difficult to persuade people of the benefits of paying that little extra fro a premium slot. Newspapers and offline media do it that way everyday, it’s worked well for decades. Pixel space versus column inches, there’s very little difference, it’s about bums on seats and eyes on the message.

Alternatively, he might want to keep it all reasonably tight, focusing on a sub aspect of it all. He might want to develop the whole agricultural angle; developing relationships with farmers, the impact on prices through drought affecting crop yield, the environment, animal welfare. Drawing stories and strands globally, through the creation of forums and community tools, enabling producers to share and debate ideas and topics and ethics and what not.

Whatever he decided, if he done it well, injecting passion ,enthusiasm and added value to the space for those people with the need, he’d soon find himself earning money.

I picked eggs as an example as it is a topic that on the face of it, isn’t that interesting to most people so is probably a whole lot harder to monetise than most. It’s probably a whole lot more fun to look at something that’s closer to home or perhaps easier to think of in terms of practical everyday applications with mass appeal.

Developing the offering and doing things better than your competitors

A look at any vertical out there will show you that there are various levels of maturity. Take forex or finance as an extreme example and you’ll see that it’s a very developed space. Loans, stocks, shares and trading is one of those areas that offer huge potentials for return with lots of products and offerings. Content that empowers investment decisions is one of those premium facets that people pay for, people want choice, people want options, they like to feel in control of their purchasing decisions; a site that assists in that process is a definite asset.

I like the mybuilder.com idea, it’s a great site to use as an example in illustrating this point. A very simple concept, attempting to answer a question that’s asked a 1000 times a day by a 1000 different people worldwide. “Do you know where I can find a good, painter, decorator, plasterer, tiler etc?”. This site puts people in touch with tradespersons who can bid for jobs and services, read reviews of their work and find answers to their needs. Give it a few months, with the right SEO and they’ll be ranking for terms like “where can i find a plasterer in london?” and other such questions.

It’s very niche, very targetted and very useful – Whilst the gumtrees and the craigslists of this world have their place, much of what they offer is presented poorly or just too damn anonymous to be trusted. People want to have confidence in an offering after all, no one wants to get burned.

A look at the search volume for related terms is kind of tricky to measure definitely (people search in diverse ways) but to keep it general there is obvious volume out there for related terms

If they were to buy this traffic on exact match from google then they’d be looking at these kinds of CPC’s. The table below shows CPC and volume data for UK specific traffic for the search term followed by location, so ‘builder in London’, ‘plumber in london’ etc.

Multiply these globally and add in a little phrase variances and the potential for such a tool becomes a little more obvious for all stakeholders, owner, service provider and user.

At the moment, gumtree and craigslist get the volume for these searches (dependant upon locale and query) , simply because they’ve been around longer and have better authority scores and link citations. Yet a look at the difference in offering shows a huge disparity between what is presented SERP wise and what is known to be out there.

Search for Builder in London and Google gives you lots of choice, but not very much else to go on. The sites it returns are a mix of local results (google local) and other basic one service offering type business, directories or advertorial services. This isn’t a bash Google type post, I’ll save that for another day; however what I’m trying to say is that in terms of what is presented, the options are still limited. There are no ‘confidence’ builders, there isn’t anything in that SERP to differentiate a poor service provider from a good one. I’m still left to do the whole research and due diligence thing myself.

A click through to Gumtree shows a random offering of things. Various providers, but nothing that really installs any confidence, nothing to make me think, cool – I’d have to email them and ask them questions and ask them for references and do all the usual due diligence.

http://www.gumtree.com/london/09/29423409.html

The type of site that I’d like to see there isn’t there though, I just happen to be lucky in that I know it exists already.

The Mybuilder.com site is far superior in that enables people to sign up and register and offer their services and for people seeking such services to review and put out quotes for tender. I can select by area or service type and I get an ebay style profile page with reviews and feedback and price guides and various other bits of information that I’d use to help inform a decision.

http://www.mybuilder.com/profile/view/alldonedecorating

Confidence is increased and as a result I’m more likely to purchase or enquire.

So what am I saying? Without sounding like an advert for mybuilder.com, I am saying that within the SERPS there are hundreds upon hundreds of opportunities to do things better and succeed. Mybuilder.com has taken a commonly asked question and developed the idea further, fulfilling the need that exists.

Go ask any lazy travel affiliate marketer out there today about Google and bar raising and you’ll get a good idea of the facts around how you just can’t afford to lay back and rest on your laurels. You have to keep pushing the technology, you have to offer service and usability over and above those of your competitors because if you don’t then you are just a click away from some SERP evaluators death clicks somewhere, and heh, if you need an idea then maybe you can go to Y! answers for inspiration (caution contains potentially offensive textual material of the dumbest kind)

Agree with what I say? Disagree even? Do feel free to comment.

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