Just so there's no confusion, CNET doesn't expect any of you to visit Snap. You could probably count the number of Net Surf readers who'll voluntarily change their browser's default homepage to snap.com using only Snappy's head. Ditto Planet Direct, My Excite, and the rest of the emerging petit online service contenders. As CNET CEO Halsey Minor put it, with characteristic succinctness, "We're in it for the front page."
Experienced netheads have to understand the economics of the Web as a function of demographics, where publishers command riches in exchange for young, wealthy, generally male eyeballs. But this is mainly because most experienced netheads are young, wealthy, and generally male. The truth is that mass speaks louder than niche, and Web users not yet savvy enough to realize they can "program" their copy of Netscape are as good as gold. Which explains why a publisher like CNET, whose content line caters almost exclusively to techheads, would change tack mid-race and start chasing newbies.
The business plan for the new class of start-screen merchants is simple. There are thousands of ISPs out there, each one of them customarily providing copies of Navigator or Explorer to their customers, customized to default to the ISP's homepage. ISPs are not known for their robust ad-sales departments, which means all that default traffic they get from new users is wasted. Enter CNET or Planet Direct, offering to provide a custom front end for the ISPs' users and split the ad revenue.
It's a grand scheme, and the comparisons made between these aggregated guides and AOL is telling, if a bit inappropriate. AOL, unlike Netscape or Yahoo, mines value out of its users well before they even get a chance to decide "where they want to go today." A Web-based service like Snap or My Excite doesn't compete with AOL, they partner with them. What they have in common is a willingness to suggest destinations to people who don't know whether they're coming or going. Which is all of us, somewhere, sometime.
This article appeared originally in HotWired.
