[thelist] "Content is king" - still true?

[Joel Firestone]

Michael:

Actually, I hope you're wrong. I have an information site on guitars getting
about 12,000 page views a day. I'm hoping to translate that traffic into
sales (guitars, amps, etc). But I have to agree that content is king. My
sites
been up for 4 years, and I haven't added the shopping yet. And seeing my
search engine placement is minimal, it HAS to be the content. : )

Joel

: Hi all
:
: I'm currently maintaining a site directed at women.  It's more or less an
: e-zine, with articles, tips, etc.  It's not the most interesting site in
the
: world (partly, I suspect, because I'm a man), but it gets by, with hits
: meandering around 100 per day.
:
: Now, the guys who are funding the site (a whole 500 quid a year currently)
: are wanting to push to making the site profitable.  The only way they
seeing
: of doing this is to have some sort of e-commerce solution on the site,
: possibly offering perfumes, makeup, stuff like that to our readers.
:
: I'm fighting this as much as I can, because I have a gut feeling that
: introducing B2C on a content site dilutes both aspects, and you're left
with
: a half-arsed commercial site with some content tacked on.
:
: Of course, this is just a gut feeling, and I have no hard facts.  I'm
: willing to look into the possibility in the distant future (summer 2002),
: but for the moment, I'd like to concentrate on the content.
:
: Am I right?  Do all sites need to go to e-commerce in order to be
considered
: 'proper'?  Isn't it better to leave this kind of thing to the truly 100%
: e-commerce sites that do things a lot better?  Shouldn't a clear line be
: drawn between the 2 types, and never the twain shall meet?
:
: Or am I just being pig-headed, because in the end, it's a lot more work
for
: me...?
:
: Your opinions are welcome.
: Michael