Why click away your visitors?

Click-through, the following of online links to online content, is the basis of online navigation and the source of much online profit.

Click-through is the central activity of a portal, Google being a perfect example. People come back to a portal again and again, but its function is only as a gateway to what people are looking for. A portal’s very success is measured best by click-through statistics.

Social network sites, on the other hand, gauge success by the clock rather than the click; site usage is measured not just in minutes but hours that users spend daily at the sites.

Click-through tools like banner ads and ranked, paid links and search results are therefore ill-suited to heavy use in the online social network because of a fundamental conflict with the function of such sites.

The current focus on click-through in seeking profit from MySpace might signal a failure to recognise the real function and the greatest asset of their space. Will News Corp forget that they need to keep people around, trying instead to make MySpace a do-it-all hub of online activity and compete with new partner Google at their own profitable game? If so, good luck Mr Murdoch!