Useit.com Alertbox Article

Jackob Nielsen’s Alertbox from November 6, 2006, entitled 100 Million Websites found on the website Useit.com discusses how the internet contains 100 Million Websites. According to Netcraft’s latest Web survey the web contains 101,435,253 websites. Although some of these websites are not live, if only half the sites accounted for are maintained today, there are still more than 100 million websites on the Internet that people pay to keep running.

Reaching the 100 million mark is a milestone, and represents the immense growth the Internet has obtained since its creation 15 years ago. The chart below above shows the growth of Internet websites from 1991 until 2006.

From this chart one can see that the Internet has experienced three growth stages:

• Explosive growth: From the years 1991-1997, the internet grew at a rate of 850% each year. During this time frame, each time users went on the web, they encountered something new.
• Rapid growth: From the years 1998-2001, the internet grew at a rate of 150% each year. Since the internet’s rapid growth ended in 2001, all the usability guidelines have been repeatedly confirmed.
• Maturing growth: From the years 2002-2006, the internet grew at a rate of 25% each year. Now, user’s basic expectations have settled and web-designers need to construct their websites accordingly, unless they have something substantially better.

If the internet continues to grow at its current rate of 25 percent, then the internet will reach 200 Million Websites by the year 2010. Even if we are realistic and slow the growth rate of websites on the internet a little, it is fair to predict that the internet will obtain 200 Million Websites by the year 2012. This prediction is fairly reasonable considering there are millions of business and people who do not have internet websites yet. Eventually every business and organization in the world will have a website.

Today when designing a website, the web-designers need to comply with users’ expectations. The internet is no longer a marvel of innovation. It is now used as an everyday tool, and websites need to differentiate themselves by providing both better content and superior solutions to users’ problems.

I agree with the Jakob Nielsen’s article. I think the internet will definitely reach 200 Million Websites by the year 2012. Currently not all businesses possess a website. Eventually all business will have a website. In addition, new business are constantly being developed, and these new business will need and eventually have websites as well.

I also agree that the Web is not a new experience for users anymore and they expect websites to be designed certain ways. Users are goal oriented when they go on the internet; they use the web as a tool to find the answer to their problem. When users go on the web, they usually have a purpose for doing so. Therefore, when designing a website, people need to keep in mind that their sites need to be useable, meaning the websites need to be easy to understand and navigate around.

Clickz.com

Today, I visited the Web site, clickz.com and read the article entitled, Technology Enable Product Placement in CGM, written by Enid Burns and published October 26, 2006. Burns' article discusses how Entertainment Media Works (EMW) plans to enable "plinking," otherwise known as product linking, in consumer-generated media CGM), such as the internet.

Plinking is the process of adding a product or service link to visible objects or images in a video. TimeShift, an advertising and Broadcast Summit at the NAB conference discussed plans for launching this plinking service. Users would freeze a single frame and define an area where the product is located, and then once tagged, the item will be clickable through the runtime of the video, and will link to an e-commerce page, so people can shop for any item of interest they see in these videos. EMW would track the SKU numbers for several products in its database to facilitate matching the tagged product to a measurable lead.

EMW plans to allow both content viewers and user communities to take existing video and add links for a piece of the revenue share. No video aggregator sites have committed to enabling plinking on their sites yet; however a spokesperson for EMW, Ashley Heather, says EMW currently is talking to a handful of these sites at the moment.

Currently, another cross-channel product placement sited called, StarStyle.com, has been developed which allows users to shop for clothes and other products seen on popular TV shows. According to Heather, the site has received 1.2 million visitors in a two-month period and garnered 600,000 click-through the retailer sites.

Think about it, a million pieces of user-generated video are uploaded each day, so plinking has the potential to bring in $250 million in revenues each year if only one percent of viewers of CGM convert.

I chose this article because the topic of product placement has always interested me, so when I saw that product placement is now going to be used on media channels such as the Internet, I wanted to read more to find out about how and when companies plan to do this.

I know when I am watching movies or television with my friends, if we see something we think is cute, we express it to one other, and sometimes we wonder, who makes that shirt, or where can I get those pants. Well, now with the use of technology, we do not have to wonder anymore. Any consumer can go the Web site StarStyle.com to find product information seen on these media, and with the new upcoming technology of plinking, if people/perspective consumers see something they like while watching a video on the internet, the consumer will just simply have to click on the desired object to find out how to buy it. Technology is making it easier for marketers to reach and target their consumers and at the same time, it is making it easier for consumers to either by products or gathers information about certain products of interest.