[thelist] bigger hosting - a trend? (fwd)

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Subject:  Re: [thelist] bigger hosting - a trend? (fwd)

>>A couple of things:
>>*) Sure, the tools available are now making it much easier for
>>     individuals to self-publish on all kinds of sites, but I think much
of
>>     the resulting traffic comes from friends and families.

>This is pretty much how traffic for most of todays larger indie sites
>started. Examples: slashdot, kuro5hin, evolt.org

>I'm not saying that self-publishing is better than any other route, but
>this is where most non-business viral marketing comes from.

I don't disagree, but I was thinking more about the "Photos of the
dog" type sites using stuff like iTools, Geocities etc - that's where
the average consumer experiences self-published content.

(snipped loads of stuff I agree with)


>I'm not saying the majority of internet traffic is being directed to
>smaller sites, just enough to cause many of these sites to reach the
>critcal point where free hosting/space is no longer sufficient to their
>needs. Like my site (http://seb.gotadsl.co.uk), which went from about 300
>page views/month to 1500 page view/month from October to December. Not a
>lot, I grant you, but seeing as I started in September with about 40 page
>views, I'm reasonably pleased. In December, the vast majority of those
>views were links from google, and a disproportionate amount were for a
tiny
>article I wrote praising the Ericsson T68 to high heaven. No word of
mouth,
>just incredibly fortunate google rankings. And those people keep coming
>back, though I can't for the life of me work out why.

Fair enough - most independent sites cater to a niche audience
and do very well to capture that niche. I'd be very surprised if there's
a double digit percentage of Linux users who *don't* regularly visit /. and
UserFriendly (and most of those will be deliberately avoiding them
rather than just not going).

But that's not the same as saying that the future is independent publishing
and that big companies are toast.

Cheers
Martin


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