Net Addictions

By Anita Hamilton

When you plunked down $2,000 on a new computer not too long ago, chances are you deluded yourself into thinking you'd do something really useful with it--like finally getting your finances in order. Or creating a digital photo album extraordinaire. But did you ever get around to such worthy pursuits? If you're like lots of people, you spend more time squeezing in a round of virtual checkers, listening to music online or sending instant messages to friends.

How do we know? Thanks to Web-tracking software that can trace your every click, Web-trend watchers are fully aware of your foibles. Scan research firm Media Metrix's list of sites people spend the most time on each month--known as "sticky" sites--and you'll discover that 7 of the top 10 destinations are for online games, such as sweepstakes, bingo and chess. There's pogo.com a hub for virtual card and other games; simslots.com a site where slot-machine junkies can win up to $5,000 each month; and bingo.com the decidedly old-wave site that hooks people for an average of four hours a month, or twice as long as the average user spends on Yahoo. Community sites and webcams get loyal followers as well.

Many of the stickiest sites are tiny. SimSlots, for example, gets only about 600,000 users a month, or 5% of the traffic of eBay. But there's more than one way to measure popularity on the Net, and stickiness rankings do a great job of spotting trends and ferreting out Net addictions.

The hard part for sticky sites is making money. Ironically, the stickier a site is, the less appealing it is to advertisers. "If a site is sticky, that means people are not clicking on ads," says Classmates CEO Michael Schutzler, a top Net advertiser. What's more, "stickiness is a meaningless measure for sites that sell products," says e-commerce consultant Michael Shostak. "Just because you hang around the store doesn't mean you are going to buy."

A few sites are figuring out paths to profitability. Take blackplanet.com a community-oriented site for African Americans where visitors spend an average of 2 1/2 hours each month, according to research firm Nielsen//NetRatings. To cash in on such loyalty, the site has supplemented traditional banner ads at the top of each Web page with sponsorships within the site itself. For example, members can join a book club run by Doubleday without ever leaving the site. BlackPlanet then holds online chats about each selection.

Over at Pogo, short ads appear in the middle of the screen after each game, when people are ready for a break anyway. Not only did Pogo top Media Metrix's stickiness rankings this January, but it also broke into the top 100 sites for overall traffic.

"The secret to our success is that we're not trying to create the latest, greatest, coolest thing," says Pogo CEO Erick Hackenburg. "One hundred million Americans play cards every day; 50 million play bingo. We've just paid attention to what people do." So go ahead, squander your time on that pricey PC playing virtual cribbage until 3 o'clock in the morning. After all, you're hardly the only one hooked on silly sites.

What sites are you stuck on? You can let us know or ask us questions by e-mailing Anita at [email protected]