“Brian’s insight is that in a world of loudest and fastest, he has turned it down, doing it slow and doing it right,” Mr. Sicha said. “And by being consumer facing, he doesn’t have to have monster numbers. The people come ready to buy.” In fact, 10 to 20 percent of its visitors click on links, a rate that would make ad sellers drool. Mr. Lam hardly invented the model. The Web is full of mom-and-pop shops that live on referral fees for things like pet supplies and camping gear. Many companies also pay for referrals — eBay, Half.com, even retailers like Gap and Old Navy. A business that used to be mired in spam is becoming far more legitimate.
Great story about Brian Lam, former Gizmodo editor and now owner of a very nifty website called the Wirecutter. I wrote about it on Warston over a year ago:
Its purpose is fairly straightforward: on the website, you’ll find a list of the best gadgets for a proper category. The thing is that categories aren’t merely named after a certain function, like Printers. The categories are rather named after the consumer interpretation of the product.