How?: Walled gardens and Sticky clicking

I was rather surprised that when Chris gave her lecture the other week on Walled gardens, and the ways that firms, and software try to lock you in to their product, nobody mentioned Banks. They are notorious for making the switching costs high, and the procedure to do it is long and laborious.

In fact, keeping customers in your page is what e-business is all about these days. The "Stickiness" of your page is an important factor, when web designing. The whole idea is that the longer you keep people in your site, the more chance you have of getting their business. In this vein, businesses are setting up websites which resemble “hedged mazes”, with lots of sticky clicking on internal links involved. It makes the process of going “back” harder. Don’t know about anyone else, but if I were stuck in a maze, that would make me frustrated, not eager to buy.

A good example of the walled garden approach is before your eyes right now. Blogger. If you wish to comment on this piece that I have written, you must be a member of Blogger, to sign in and leave a comment. Word Press only requires a current email address for comment leavers. Blogger have decided that if people read blogs (using blogger) that they would like to interact with, then they must set up a blogger blog themselves – thus expanding the blogger community. From there, because the amount of people who use blogger is so large, new bloggers will see the benefits of joining with blogger first off, as it enables them more interaction.

Interesting thought, the whole exponential membership thing, wonder if it is working out for them.

The author in no way condones or expects you to become a member of Blogger and subject yourself to a Walled Garden, just to be able to leave a comment