Newsfeeds And Specialty Search To Gain Popularity Over Traditional Web Sites
Jakob Nielsen points to the emerging relevance of dedicated search feeds, and, as I personally interpret this, of the highly specific and targeted newsfeeds. He says in one of his latest Alertbox columns:
"...the Web's strength comes from narrowly targeted sites that provide users with highly specialized information that they need or care about passionately.It was also clear that search was a hugely important general-interest service, because even back when the Web had only 30,000 sites, locating specialized ones was nearly impossible without help.
The website is becoming a less prominent locus of experience as people use search engines to bring up answers to their current questions.
How can sites cope with masses of freeloaders?"
My answer:
By using Web sites as extended online archives and rich media libraries of content to be consulted for in-depth research.
By gradually shifting toward providing topic-specific newsfeeds to readers built around the effective aggregation and filtering of fresh content, news, search results and other relevant online and offline INFORMATION.
Jakob Nielsen points to a good set of useful actions publishers can take in the effort to counterbalance users increased attention with simple and direct answers to their questions. These include:
- Realize that unique visitors are an irrelevant statistic.
- Offer fly-trap content. I call this mini-guides and mini-dossiers and I must truly testify that they work wonders.
- Such content attracts users by providing narrowly focused pages that provide clear answers to common problems.
- Embellish the answer with rich "see also" links to related content and services.
- Go beyond pure information and provide analysis and insight.
- Publish a newsletter with additional tips and useful information.
Absolutely great advice.
