With Yahoo’s announcement last week that it will begin allowing widgets on its pages we see the beginnings of the formal breakdown of “web site as destination”.
Consumers want the ability to consume data and use services everywhere online and sites will have to buckle to this pressure. Yahoo’s announcement is clearly a reaction to Facebook’s move towards becoming a development platform.
Historically, sites have built financial models around attracting consumers to a destination, keeping them there as long as possible, and maximizing financial return from this activity.
In the near future all sites will be forced to identify the value-added services they provide consumers and give them the tools to use these services anywhere.
