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Could this week's $1.6 billion sale to Google signal newfound interest among advertisers and investors in the lesser-known sites? Well, no. Blogger Tom Taulli notes that despite the success of Facebook, YouTube and MySpace, thousands of smaller players are suffering. Actually, the success of the few big sites is taking advertising away from the little guys.
Take the case of Judy's Book, a local advertising site. Recently, the company's CEO, Andy Sack, wrote a blog post about the challenges his company faces. Some of the issues: attracting/keeping users, getting users to contribute reviews of local businesses, getting merchants to spend money for traffic, and getting strong placement on Google (where it seems most traffic comes from nowadays).
Taulli (he's at InvestorOffering.com) said a venture capitalist focusing on consumer Internet plays told him that three to four million unique visitors are needed to get advertisers interested.
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.