As you already know, I’m a big proponent of local media companies creating niche verticals rather than adding “sections” to their sites. There are many reasons why this is smart strategy, but perhaps the most important is that it fits the architecture of the Web. Functionally, a URL is just a URL, but that’s not the case when examining the structure of the Web and, therefore, how everything works. And I think this understanding is crucial to building business models that will endure.

And perhaps more importantly for media companies is that the creation of massive portals gives the false sense that one site is different than the next. Bigger is better, we think, but this is simply not true.

Before I go any further, let me be clear that I’m not talking about ad metrics or the ability to monetize page views. I’m talking about understanding the Web as a platform. That the advertising industry continues to function in a reach/frequency paradigm doesn’t mean we should tie our futures to it exclusively. Besides, it’s simply a matter of technology to string together a series of sites and “get credit” for the mass it creates.

I’m after the language we use, because it’s robbing us of vision. For example, when we refer to a niche vertical as a “micro-site” or a network program site as a “mini-site,” what’s the implication? That our branded portals are “macro-sites?” “Maxi-sites?” “Major BFD sites?”

You see, the more we think (and talk) that way, the more we reveal our ignorance about the nature of the Web and inhibit our ability to creatively attack the problems we face.

So here’s the deal. Websites are all the same in the structure of the Web. Every one is a single pixel on the page that makes up the whole. As I’ve written before, consider a high resolution picture of Uncle Harry. You’d have to do a heck of a lot of zooming to isolate a single pixel, and that’s the predicament we’re in structurally. If the picture examined traffic, it would certainly look different, but I’m not talking about traffic.

Google, for example, looks at the picture of Uncle Harry and says, “we can help and make money from every pixel.” So Google doesn’t need to spit shine its own pixel in order to be successful; they just help everybody else spit shine theirs.

This opportunity to enable, make better, and make money from a growing numbers of sites is not only the opportunity but also the mandate for local media companies. But it begins with the fundamental understanding that nobody is special in the architecture of the Web (at least not yet, lawmakers). A site is a site is a site.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 10:45 am and is filed under Media 2.0, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.