Customer Co-creation -- The Secret Sauce for Today's Top Global Web Sites
Posted by Adam B. Needles at 1:00 PM
I was conducting research on the topic of Internet marketing in the era of Web 2.0, and I ran across some interesting data points. In the early years of Web growth, ad-supported news content and consumer e-mail were the two greatest drivers of the top global Web sites such as Yahoo!. But trends such as social networking and blogging have changed this dynamic.
Two data points speak to how much this has changed -- especially with respect to how much customer co-creation is driving the future of the Web:
> Growth among traditional, ad-driven news sites is flat: "[O]nline news audience growth is flat and the market is highly fragmented, with nearly one-half of traffic going to sites that are below the top 100 news sites," according to a press release from technology industry analyst firm Jupiter Research from March of this year. And this is even as the number of Web sites globally continues to grow at a rediculous pace.
> Participation dominates the top global Web sites: Among the top 10 Web sites globally, according to Internet site tracking service Alexa, 5 out of those 10 are now based on user-generated content -- i.e., they are social media, social networking or user-contributed media sites. The list includes: YouTube (3), Facebook (5), MySpace (7), Wikipedia (8) and Blogger.com (9).
Do you have any examples of acceleration of this paradigm shift? If so, please share them.
In internet advertising, viewership is king. This is strong evidence that sites that offer participation are more engaging than static sites.
Nice article. Share with you the latest news that Google unveiled its new searching engine system to allow users to alter the search results. A big move, right? detail refer to:
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081121/ap_on_hi_te/tec_editing_google
@ John/Jeffrey - Thanks for the comments.
A quick update. I've taken this post and built out a larger post on my Propelling Brands blog this week. Looks at 'building a sustainable Internet marketing presence.' One key insight is that co-creation is critical to sustainability.
Check it out if you get a chance:
http://propellingbrands.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/building-a-sustainable-internet-marketing-presence/
Adam, I think it is interesting that you have not listed Amazon.com as a site that falls under this topic. As we discussed in our last board meeting, 90% of Amazon.com's website is based upon user reviews, comments and buying patterns. I think the reality is that the internet is becoming almost entirely based on user contribution. Reviews, comments, and ratings are the key traffic drivers for many sites, and these drivers are entirely created by users.
@ Michael - Thanks for adding Amazon.com to the discussion.
@ Giustina - Thaks also for adding Fickr to the discussion.
Both of these are great examples of the fact that it is impossible to separate corporate from customer co-contribution in the leading Web brands these days.