Web 2.0 Revolution (Part II): The Emergence of New Media

Ten years ago, when search engines first appeared, their homepages only had categories similar to a telephone yellow pages directory. Under each major category were subcategories, and operators of the search engines sent people online every day to collect websites and categorize them. Users relied on clicking through layers of categories to find websites.

However, with the vast number of websites in the world, it was impossible to categorize them all, let alone the fact that everyone might have different perceptions of the categories. Therefore, a search box was added for keyword searches. The simplicity of the page back then was such that even Yahoo! wasn't much more than that.

Nowadays, Google's even simpler homepage design contrasts sharply with the cluttered homepages of major portal sites, almost making one feel as if the internet has come full circle after ten years. Nevertheless, the bloating of search engines stems from a very simple formula:

Since most people leave after finding a website via the search engine, this results in a very low "average page views per visitor." I remember the statistics from back then indicating approximately 1.2 pages per visit. For search engine operators aiming to develop into new media, this was a serious issue.

The most crucial aspect of media is circulation (for newspapers) or ratings (for television), and for websites, naturally, it's pageviews (Pageview), because advertisements can be embedded within the pages. If each user only views 1.2 pages before leaving, how can the advertising business survive?

◎ Extending user dwell time or seeking fewer but higher-quality users. Looking at the formula below, it’s not hard to see that to increase the "average page views per visitor," user dwell time must be extended.