I hear a lot of advertisements that say something like "Come by and see us at 7800 Something Boulevard or stop by and visit our web site 24 hours a day at somethingsomething.com." I think we're at a point in our lives where we can stop touting 24 hour web site availability as a feature/benefit/selling point. Really. It's like saying "Come by and visit our new showroom that is filled with air. That's right, you can breathe real air while you visit our showroom!" Or "This car now comes standard with tires! And brakes!" We all get it. Your web site is open when you're not. It really wasn't that tough a concept to grasp in the first place. It's not a selling point anymore. Stop it.

I think it may be time to put hours on web sites. You know the laws of supply and demand, right? A shift in the supply curve (i.e. web site availability instead of price) could have some positive (albeit unknown) ramifications on demand. If people know your web site only operates from 10 in the morning till 7 at night, they'll have to make more of an effort to get there. We'll figure out just how elastic web sites can be if we start to limit availability. "Visit us on the web 9 hours a day" sounds a lot more exciting than "Visit us on the web 24 hours a day." It might make people think "Hey, they must have something really good if they can just shut it down 15 hours a day! I should go there!" Creating an artificial demand due to a perceived lack of supply? I know this sounds fishy and maybe a little crazy, but just remember that one day, not too long ago, someone was sitting in a meeting and said "Let's put water, which is freely available in taps all over the world, in bottles and sell it for as much as soda!" I'm sure every one laughed at the notion, but this guy probably made a million dollars, just like the guy who invented the pet rock.