Opportunities in a multi-tiered internet

With the growth of social media has come a massive fragmentation of the internet into individual tiers which in themselves are microcosms of a larger whole.

These microcosms aren’t necessarily small - YouTube, Digg, Flickr - are all structures built into the internet which are mini-internets unto themselves.

Similar rules apply, similar opportunities apply.

I already knew this intellectually - heck, I started life on the net in MSN’s walled gardens - so it was always in my face.

The big difference between then and now is that social media now allows ordinary people to become a major focus of these tiers.

This totally slapped me in the face just now when Mick posted at Threadwatch that YouTube’s biggest download over Easter was two otters holding hands - 3.8 million in fact.

Click the link above - check the page. Notice the frame on the right showing related searches. Notice that 48 people also made related videos, some of which look made entirely to tap into the sudden popularity of the otters video?

It’s like watching SEO in action, but in a different tier of the internet under different rules - but showing similar principles.

Free traffic for optimising keywords and getting top of the list - like the Ali G attempt who got 40+k pageviews riding on the back of it.

Imagine you put a marketing message there. Imagine the scope for pushing products or similar sites of interests - cute animal toys, porcelain figures, pet supplies, a community about animals or earth issues, or even photography.

Often it takes realisation of opportunity to recognise it. And finally I just woke up and saw a big one - about riding on the back of popular YouTube videos for traffic.

The first challenge is to be organised enough to get something set up - the second, to keep up - but the most important: convert that traffic into something useful.

Of course, the internet is full of these different walled gardens, crossing interests, media, cultures, and languages. The quest is now to isolate which ones may be of greatest potential value and tap into them now.