"and in those days, 20 companies controlled 80% of the entire traffic in the biz ... while the 80/20 % rule still applies, but 20 companies used to be 80% of the industry - now it would probably be 2000 companies that make up the top 20% (purely a guess, i have no idea how many companies or people are in this biz - i just know there are too fucking many!!)"
Its getting crowded at the top, I guess. There seems to be an inkling of panic on the boards of late. I was at a GFY party recently and it was full of traffic monkeys getting hammered on Grey Goose and bitiching that content providers were taking half of "their" profits. But their biggest question was how to get into content creation. I just laughed and laughed. And then I laughed some more.
The amateur market is turning into girl farms. It is getting way too hard to make it as a single website anymore. But to a great extent, those small websites were providing a lot of traffic to the larger businesses through affiliate programmes and exit traffic. Now they can barely afford to attend internext. There is certainly a big correction happening in the market at the moment. Everyone is manic about finding the next new thing. Or return to Old School, or get into mainstream, or whatever. But as far as I can see, the business is just settling into what the future has in store. If you are good at it, you will do well. Its just not as profitable as in the beginning. Nothing much has changed in my world except the obvious increase in competition, which just leads me to more creative marketing strategies and my business grows slowly. It plods along like a tortoise but I have seen a lot of hares come and go.
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