Are Webmaster Resource Centers dying?

[Cyndalie]

Over the past five years I've seen an upswing trend of Webmaster resource sites popping up, spinning off a board, retaining writers and pushing out regular articles, updated directories, and pushing good amounts of 'webmaster' traffic through these both newbie oriented and time savers for pros type resource sites.

Lately though, it seems 80% of those online 5 years ago are now dead...haven't been updated since 2003, 2005, with more dead links in their directories than live ones, and some even advertising billing companies that have gone out of business 3-4 years ago. Why even keep these sites up?

I've seen the trend that since full resource centers take a staff to maintain and continue building upon, most simply can't handle the growing workload that never ends to keep the quality up. So many devote time to building up a 'board'...but with hundreds of adult boards, that is so diluted and tough to keep alive, the attention span of its owners tends to let them die so they can move on to more profitable projects.

The "if you build it advertisers will come" business model that many webmaster targeted sites have been created on simply cannot be sustained anymore. I think there are a few reasons for this...

Many resource sites point away from the direction of building well kept directories to make it easy for webmasters to find stuff, and simply become PR/News centers - by being able to deliver a message to both an online and offline (print) audience, advertisers pay top dollar for more than just traffic - they pay for branding and priority exposure.

But lately the ynot's, allofems, cozyfrogs, webmastervaults, seem to be shrinking, and while advertisers need somewhere to fly their banners, I wonder if the lifespan of these resoruce sites is going through a cycle being outshone by boards and news centers, or if there is a lack of newbie populations to sustain them .... is the webmaster population aging without new lifeblood coming in that the flowing pace it once was, say back in 2002? Or is it harder to get started now than ever - not on the part of the sponsors (setting up blogs and content delivered sites is easier than ever) but getting TRAFFIC that brings them to their knees.

I mean how hard can it be to setup a thumbnail tgp with a decent CMS backend you just load up content into a database and let it run itself for months at a time while you market the hell out of it?

I know I bring up alot of questions here, so this thread is wide open. Is the resource center dying?

[XXXPhoto]

Cyn,

You've touched on a trend I've watched develop firsthand.

In the early days (say 97 and 98) the resource part of webmaster sites were very important tool for networking. A newbie could come in and find what hosts would allow adult content, what programs were out there that would actually pay you for your traffic and (in the case of YNOTNetwork) a list of content providers that were prescreened to have the required 2257 docs...

IMO as folks built up their network of contacts for services they needed, they migrated to the boards in search of b2b contacts not as easily established just looking through listings. Heck, I remember cold calling whois numbers trying to get in contact with folks back in 96-97, just to 'meet' webmasters and establish working relationships. Bangwang and I hooked up in that manner and I swear that's the best phone call I ever made.

Anyway, as the bb boards grew in eyeballs watching, folks began to see the power of the shills. Asking for a good host (insert program, content provider or any other service in here) and then pluggin one (or several that were actually all the same company...lol).

Then the threaded/vbull and phpBB boards started; plus you had the 'sig' lines starting to allow banner/buttons. IMO this moved the importance of advertising from the standard top of page banner right into the content (conversations in this case). This gave rise to paid posters, drive bys, and short one sentence responses.

IMO that's where we are now resource wise. Other than newbies, many webmasters have built up a network of people to call upon for any item that might come up; be it on a board or in ICQ or on the phone.

Rather than looking at a listing of services, if they want to try something new they will go to their network and ask opinions first. And the ones they tend to ask opinions about are the 'new' things they see on the boards, not the new things they see in resource listings.

I spent around 7 years total doing the resource sections at YNOTNetwork, YNOTMasters and WebOverdrive and while I'm content to know I prolly helped alot of the successful folks today through my efforts, it's kinda sad to see that aspect of the industry slip by the wayside. But from a biz perspective I gotta look at it like the buggy manufacturer... Even if he was the best at it, his ass had to adapt or go bankrupt.

One thing that is different than it was back when the resource areas were popular. In say 98 a newbie could go to a board and post "I'm brand new, how can I do well". At that time those folks could be pointed to a ton of ways they could easily make good coin fairly quickly if they were willing to put a little effort into it... Now, I really do not think that's the case. Both from the ease of doing it and the effort they are willing to make.

Dunno how many of your questions these musings answered or if all they did was raise some more...lol

[Evil Chris]

In my years in the business, I have had a hand in several resource sites/areas.
I'd have to agree with much of what Mark said about the evolution of advertising in our business area.

Public webmaster boards have certainly put a dent into the effectiveness of a true resource area. (as opposed to a fake resource area, one where all other resources areas both fake and real are listed, the intent being to grab ad monies).

[LAJ]

Well, the times have certainly changed over the years... and while I think there is still a need for Webmaster resource sites in this day and age, the opportunity for revenue is tougher and tougher. I'm sure this will be taken the wrong way by some people, but nowadays where blogging and youtube are huge... getting up to the second updates, gossip, and the rush to get as many eyeballs in a short a time as possible, it is putting a hurt on sites that focus on well written and researched news stories and comprehensive services and listings that actually require the user to do spend some time clicking around, reading and appreciating the work that went into something. Unfortunately, anyone with a computer and an opinion... regardless of how moronic they are... can put something up in seconds flat and draw in the sheep.

[Platinum Chris]

I'd have to agree as well, the many forums abound are now the favorable resource.

I still do get webmasters asking if I know of any good resources sites from time to time though.