October 20, 1997
'Web Rings' Emerge as Alternative to Search Engines By Andrew Marlatt
Like most great ideas, it seems so obvious. Instead of forcing a user to plow through thousands of search engine results to find, say, dinosaur sites, organize dinosaur-related sites into interlinked "rings," enabling the surfer to move between sites known to be on the topic. Then sell space in those targeted rings to advertisers. A small number of sites are doing just that, with the first, largest, and most ambitious being Webring.
"Our overall goal is to make Webring more of a starting point, something more like Yahoo or AltaVista," said Sage Weil, Webring's director of technology, who was a high-school senior in 1995 when he founded the company. "Instead of going to a big search engine to find information about fishing, you look on Webring."
Adding 1,800 sites a day, and with 18,000 rings linking nearly a quarter of a million sites, Webring may seem well on its way to prominence. Yet the 19-year-old California college student insisted the effort is only now "about to take off." Weil recently sold out to Starseed, an Ashland, Ore., technology firm that is revamping Webring's marketing and advertising and giving the site a facelift, due to be unveiled Jan. 1.
Until now, Webring has not promoted itself. Instead, site growth has depended on word of mouth and the efforts of ring members, who not only start rings themselves--Webring supplies an HTML code and the server--but solicit other sites to join.
A minimum of five like-minded sites is required to start a ring. To attract more members and strengthen topics that "deserve more exposure," said Joe Kasmer, the site's marketing director, Webring plans to start rings itself and solicit other sites to fill them. The first rings to be begun in-house will be business-related, he said, as large advertisers are most likely to be interested in those sites.
Advertising, Webring's source of income, has also not been vigorously pursued, noted Starseed's president, Charley Lanusse. Currently, banner space is available only on the RingWorld page--the site's directory of available rings--or within the ring on a "Next 5" button, which delivers users a list of the next five sites in that ring. To create more ad space, Webring will feature a new Java-based navigation toolbar that sits outside the system and follows the user through a ring.
The key to attracting advertisers, Lanusse said, is increasing traffic and proving that the traffic is a good buy. Today, the majority of Webring sites are personal pages expressing a topical interest. While Weil argued that advertisers should be interested in the personal pages because they are still content-specific, he said Webring is seeking more commercial pages, which now constitute only 5 to 10 percent of its sites.
The challenge in signing up commercial sites is having to explain to prospective clients not only why it's good for them, but why it's not bad for them.
"There is the philosophy that if a commercial site gets involved in the Web ring, they are positioning alongside a competitor," said Lanusse. In response, Lanusse points out that Yellow Pages advertisers are also positioned alongside competitors.
Webring also wants to expand its user base with the help of banner ads, perhaps at search sites, and print and television advertising, said Kasmer, the marketing director. Contests pitting Webring against traditional information-gathering tools are also being considered, he said. The site's home page, meanwhile, will be active, featuring the current collection of hyperlinks plus news about hot new rings and sites.
What won't change is Webring's approach to new members. If it's topic-specific, any site is welcome. "We're committed to open information," said Lanusse. "We're not concerned about policing that information. We're concerned about getting as much information indexed as possible."
The other player currently in the Web ring field, Looplink, which was started in the spring of 1997, is considerably smaller than Webring and has a decidedly different approach: It is exclusionary. Looplink has 70 rings and 2,000 sites, most of which are commercial, all of which are pre-screened and continually checked.
"It's a gut feel, but we're looking for quality sites," explained David Pasternack, president of Looplink parent company Internet Marketing Group of Rockville Centre, N.Y. "We always keep our eye on the ball, saying we have to make this attractive for an advertiser. We bounce sites all the timeÉif we don't like the content, if we don't think they're professional."
Looplink's revenue model also differs. It sells ad space in "e-mags," weekly electronic magazines distributed to end users who sign up. Each loop topic has an e-mag comprising articles and ads from loop members and outside advertisers. Members receive one free ad placement per month and pay $100 per ad in other issues.
Looplink solicits potential members and end users on Internet Marketing Group's own sites, such as did-it.com, Catalog Mart, and the Newsletter Library, but Pasternack does not see significant site growth. "The loops don't have to be any bigger," he said. "We just have to maintain the quality."
Webring, meanwhile, could grow to 500,000 or possibly 1 million sites in the next year, Kasmer said. By then, the site could be known as "The Original Webring," a name it is now considering to indicate its first-in-the-door position.
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Keywords: marketing
Date: 19971020