The rise of widgets, blogging platforms, and social networks is driving the increasing fragmentation of the web.  Users are moving past large portals and choosing to spend the bulk of their time on-line in increasingly distributed places. The fragmentation, however, creates real challenges for advertisers who are trying to reach key target demographics. Buying the top ten properties does not come close to buying the majority of page views.

According to Lehman Brothers, the top ten web properties account for only 28.2% of page views and yet 76.4% of ad revenues.

What is going on? Why the massive discrepancy, 2.7x, between usage and spend?  Today, autos.yahoo.com is qualified, targeted traffic. Advertisers can buy a single property and realize the efficiencies that come from working with a single source of relevant inventory.  The long-tail, however, continues to grow in size and significance and users are migrating away from company-owned content sites to community-centered sites where the users are the experts, the product managers, and the editorialists. Today, the long-tail suffers from limited targeting, URL whitelist/black list issues, analytics, and other frictions that limit the accessibility and the economic value of Third Place inventory.

However, one thing is clear. Buying the big ten is no longer a viable approach to on-line advertising campaigns and programs.

To understand the power of the distributed web, I think it is helpful to visit one of Ray Oldenberg’s ideas, the Third Place. Wikipedia defines the Third Place as, “social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace.” Examples in the physical world include the gym and Starbucks. Wikipedia goes onto to say,”… Ray Oldenburg argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place. Oldenburg calls one’s “first place” the home and those that one lives with. The “second place” is the workplace — where people may actually spend most of their time. Third places, then, are “anchors” of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction.”

People share a need for a Third Place – an anchor in their lives and a facilitator of identity, dialogue, and meaning. The social web understood this need and provided the on-line equivalent to coffee hour, bridge club, etc. As in the real world, where community anchors number in the millions are segment by location, age, interest, gender, religion, etc. the web is becoming a mosaic of Third Places, or grass-roots communities.

Web 2.0 is very much about community and the last few year’s witnessed the rise of anchor companies such as Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, and others that are siphoning traffic away from more traditional web leaders.  Blogging platforms and web site builders, such as Blogger, Ning, and Synthasite are allowing users to create their own Third Place on-line – places where users interact, express, and participate.

Today, the long-tail represents 71.8% of page views.  As technology platforms further allow for user-control and collaboration, this number can only grow. Widgetbox’s technology furthers the atomization of the web and allows users to take the best of the web and consume it in a Third Place of their choosing. 

We are working to help people realize their need for community, shared identity, and to allow them to meet their Third Place needs without sacrificing access to content, applications, and services.

In addition, we are working to help eliminate the very real frictions that limit the long-tail’s share of ad spend to only 23.6%.

Oldenburg’s idea is a powerful one. The framework helps me better understand the rise of social media and underscores why advertisers and big brands must learn to invest in and not against the trend.

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