How Interactive Will Websites Become?
October 17, 2008
The appeal of interactive websites can’t be ignored, if you’re planning to start a business online, or take an existing business online. Some of the most successful websites appear to be those that are interactive in some way and user generated content is becoming extremely popular.
If you can come up with an interactive website which will appeal to a large audience, you could experience explosive growth.
ICanHazCheezburger is a great example of the power of interactive web sites. It was launched on a blog platform in January 2007, using cute and crazy pics of cats with captions.
Readers began submitting their own pics and captions and voting and commenting on each one. Less than a year after its launch, ICanHazCheezburger sold for $2 million and it now receives 38.5 million page views a month.
And look at YouTube. It’s explosive growth was achieved by allowing users to upload millions of videos. And the interactivity of the web site is taken further because users are also able to vote and comment on the videos.
Post Secret is one of the biggest interactive blogs in the world and it is another web site with user generated content. Visitors mail in their secrets on handmade postcards, to share with others on the blog.
Surprisingly, Post Secret is still hosted on Blogspot and the only way it appears to make money is through the sale of four books. Mind you, with almost 40 million unique visitors a month, I’m sure that profits from book sales will be high.
Trip Advisor launched in 2000 and was purchased in 2004 by Interactive Corporation. The site is largely made up of user generated content, with visitors submitting travel reviews and photos. The site also has very active forums where travellers share advice on just about every tourist area on the planet.
The biggest advantage to a user generated website, is the ability to generate thousands of pages within a short time frame. This helps the site get ranked in the search engines for many different keyphrases, which helps to generate more traffic and increase revenue.
There’s obvious downsides too. Depending on how skilled you are, there’s the cost of setting up a user generated website to begin with, as well as the costs of having a huge amount of traffic. Also, as the site grows it will need to be monitored constantly to prevent it from being bombarded with spam.
Forums are a hugely popular way of adding user generated content to a website but a lot of hard work is required to launch and grow a forum. If you go down this route, you might be talking to yourself for a long time, before you attract many visitors.
Blogs are also interactive in a way but on most blogs, the only user generated content tends to be the comments. I still think blogs have a long way as far as user discussion goes. We do see a lot of discussion between the blogger and individual members but on most blog, there’s not lots going on between commenters themselves. The way threads are structured makes it quite difficult for this to happen.
I do think we’ll see many more interactive web sites in the future and the technology used will become more sophisticated.
What’s your opinion on interactive web sites? Do you use web sites with user generated content? And in what way do you see blogs becoming more interactive in the future?
Comments
12 Responses to “How Interactive Will Websites Become?”
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Successful And Outstanding Blogger
Hi Cath, For a company to really get the most interactive value out of blog comments, it should give the blog a narrow focus – have a blog about a particular product, service, business issue, customer segment, etc. As time goes on, I think people are going to expect some type of interactivity for a site to be credible, whether it’s blogs, surveys, forums, or whatever.
Brad Shorr’s last blog post..The Best Marketing Advice that Came My Way
On our site we use a blog and community forum for the majority of interactivity. And you’re right, a forum is quite difficult to popularize. I’ve been thinking of creating a “eVentureBiz customers only” area in our forum. Maybe a SEO school or something . . . but that’s down the road.
Also I think another powerful tool for interactivity are wikis. I plan to make use of one sometime in the future, maybe a how-to-do-that wiki or something.
I see blogs becoming more interactive one day by moving more into the mobile sector. Maybe you can comment on blogs through your cell phone while you’re driving or have a blog read back to you on your phone.
Hi Brad – that is a really good point. A narrow focus is far more likely to attract folk who are truly interested.
Hi John – I like the members only idea – that is becoming increasingly popular. Also, the Wiki idea is great.
Did you know – you can already access blogs by phone? I used to check blog comments on my phone. And I’m pretty sure Ian Denny used to post some blog posts off of his mobile.cell phone. Mind you – he is far more tech savvy than I am.
Yeah I know, an associate of mine does that. I guess I meant I see blogs evolving more in that area, kind of like jott (voice email). Something like your phone can connect with your blog and you can access and interact with your blog from a distance in a more advance way than it happens now.
Details . . . wish I had them, maybe I’d be rich! LOL.
Hi Cath: Sites with user-generated content can provide more and better content than a site with a staff doing all of the work ever could. It’s similar to CNN’s segment where watchers send in video they’ve taken of news-worthy events. Now that the US elections are going on CNN is constantly referring to messages it gets from Twitter and on Facebook. I wonder if there’s a way to connect a blog’s comments section to twitter so that every time someone makes a comment on your blog it appears in twitter . . .
Marelisa’s last blog post..Eradicating Poverty Through Human Ingenuity – Blog Action Day 2008
Hi John – voice enabled sounds like a better idea. I couldn’t imagine sitting down typing a blog post on the phone. It takes forever for me to do a text message. I only blog because I can type.
Hi Mare – I didn’t know that happened – that is brilliant. And yesterday, on Twitter, Liz Strauss found an article where a college was offering a $10,000 scholarship in blogging. It sounds like everyone is taking blogging really seriously now.
The comment thing on Twitter would be interesting, so long as it didn’t get you banned. It would be good if there was a social networking platform that showed posts from several blogs and each comment as they came up wouldn’t it>
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Don’t Miss Out On Your Free Ad
Hi Cath. The typical blog doesn’t give much opportunity for a forum in the comments section does it? I’ve seen it starting to happen on Liz’s blog but it’s difficult to follow the chain.
I personally like the idea of interactive blogging / forums. What Brad said about people starting to expect some form of interactivity for a site to be credible is interesting. I think that’s true.
I noticed yesterday that WordPress.com has an option now to add polls to posts. You have to sign up at PollDaddy.com.
Davina’s last blog post..25 Words That Connect Us ? Frosty Sunrise
I really don’t use many interactive sites. There’s a couple of forums that I participate in and a couple of other sites where I don’t use the interactive features very often.
It’s be wonderful to come up with something interactive that would go viral, but for every YouTube, I’m sure there are a lot that just don’t go anywhere despite a lot of time and effort by their creators.
Mike Goad’s last blog post..Images of Petit Jean
Davina and others:
Wordpress 2.7, once it’s released, completely changes the way most themes operate by including in its engine the ability to have threaded comments, not unlike Disqus. Both are as close to an interactive forum design for blog comments you can probably find.
And, Cath? Why the usage of “interactive websites?” Why not call a blog what it is? Why confuse blogging with interactive websiting?
Ari Herzog’s last blog post..New Media Communications Firm Misrepresents Itself
Hi Catherine – I don’t have a website, but do have a blog. I like the conversation (comment) aspect of a blog, and do wonder how things will change in the future. It will be interesting (and fun) to be part of the advances in blogosphere.
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post..Blog Registry – Open Mic
Hi Davina – It does get confusing to follow doesn’t it? I like the idea of polls too. I tried to sign up to a poll service before and I couldn’t get it to work right.
Hi Ari – It sounds like WordPress 2.7 is going to bring some big changes, which sounds great.
But I don’t think adding the blogs mentioned to an interactive website discussion confuses issues. Remember a blog is just a website on a blogging platform.
Hi Barbara – like I said to Ari – a blog really is just a website. But of course, most websites don’t have the conversational aspect unless they have a forum. The changes do sound fun don’t they? I’m looking forward to the new style of comments section that wordpress 2.7 is going to bring.
Hi Rita – call me technically challenged but what do they do? Are they like a webhost or something?