Strange, isn’t it? The Internet is a great democratiser, but it’s also helped to concentrate power in only a few hands. I’m sure this isn’t exactly groundbreaking news, but my “I built my own website!” self is really having trouble coming to terms with it (but embracing it at the same time, I know I’ve written about it before but I can’t find it).
The web is shrinking! With the popularity of Facebook and Twitter (and their apps), there are probably five gazillion more pages out there. But the information on these sites lives and dies there.
It makes my life easier as a marketer to have these huge, aggregated sites that almost everyone visits — I can plan strategies with much more ease (notwithstanding my current question on how well these applications will display on mobile devices as they get more and more complex). I’m still occasionally obliged to build and/or manage a microsite, but one thing I’ve noticed there is a real dearth of these days is the fan site. There might be one or two that are real draws, but more people are likely to pledge allegiance in their profiles or on the Facebook Pages themselves.
It must be human nature to be lazy. The Web was this Wild West-y sort of place and it still sort of is — but for the most part, the mainstream have decided to take the path of least resistance and join up with these mega sites so they are ‘hanging out’ where everyone else is. I’m betting there are fewer weblogs now that social network and micro-blogging sites have really taken off.
There are still some excellent sites, thank goodness, but I guess this is the way the world works. There may have been a technological revolution and there’s all this talk about how kids are so different because they’re ‘digital natives’, but there hasn’t been a revolution in human behaviour. We’re still lazy shits who, generally, want to enjoy the fruits of other people’s labours.