Permanence
Posted by Brett Tackaberry on November 10th, 2005
One of the great things about the web is the fact that content posted online is (or at least should be) there “forever”. It’s not like a magazine or a newspaper that you toss in the trash after you’ve read it. The web allows information to be available indefinitely – to be recycled, re-read, re-used and referred to ad infinitum. It’s the nature of the web and it’s not a benefit that should be underestimated.
It has recently been reported that nearly one third of the visitors to the Guardian Unlimited, a Webby award-winning U.K. online newspaper, are there to read articles more than a month old. An obvious benefit to the owners of those sites and the businesses that depend on their success is the fact that those visitors represent one third of their online ad revenue. What other medium offers that kind of perpetuity?
