A study by Hitwise confirms that the fragmentation of online news and media markets has begun. The Hitwise US News and Media Report, revealed that traffic abandoning the traditional news and media sites has increased by 196 percent from April 2006 to March 2007.
Here's what was said at Leeann Prescott's blog at Hitwise sources of traffic to media and news sites:
Print News websites received 29.7 percent more traffic from Google in March 2007 than in March 2006
Broadcast Media sites drew 35.9 percent more traffic from Google during the same time period
News Aggregators and portals were additional key sources of traffic for News and Media websites.
In March of 2007, search engines were 21.09 percent of all upstream U.S. traffic to the News and Media space. Of that, Google (GOOG) accounted for 13.52 percent of the total, while Yahoo! (YHOO) was 3.85 percent and MSN (MSFT) was 1.44 percent.
From March of 2006 to March of 2007, the 10 leading news and media Web sites decreased by 3.8 percent.
Another key finding was that there is an increasing growth in local news aggregation and communities, especially in rural states.
What all of this is saying is the market is starting to fragment in the news and media category. This will happen in every area of interest on the Internet as people continue to gravitate toward that which specifically interests and is relevant to them.
All of those attempting to create portals and general information sites will experience this.
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