On Tue, 6 Feb 1996, Steve Outing wrote:

> I don't have the answers. Still trying to figure it out as I go. I'd be 
> interested to hear other perspectives on the free-distribution newsletter 
> model. Am I crazy or can this work?
> 

Gosh, it sounds like our list's fearless leader :-) is getting cold 
virtual feet. He's not the only one; I've heard that if 1995 was the 
Year of the Internet (or at least, the year the media discovered the 
Net) then 1996 will become the Year of the Internet Backlash. I hear 
this pessimism around the office more than I used to, but sit tight 
Steve, Rome wasn't built in a day. (And I guess you could say the Net 
wasn't built in a nanosecond.)

As for problems with getting sponsors, I think folks too quickly assumed 
that print models could be massaged into online models with just a few 
tinkers here and there. But I still go back to the original premise that 
if I'm Joe Company, I no longer need a mouthpiece (newspaper) to tout 
myself; the media has changed, and allows me to tout directly without 
going through that mouthpiece. And with search engines, there really 
isn't an urgent (read: moneymaking) market for lists of links, which 
everyone says is another way to make money. Although, I've recently 
visited Newslink, often advertised here, and was happy with the layout 
and ease of the site (end free plug zone).

What I believe the current state of the Internet (max 28.8 modems, 
limited market penetration, no definite secure server transactions, etc.) 
will boil down to is that selling ads and making money for giving 
info/photos/articles away for free is *very* limited. Only the very 
biggies, such as ESPN, I think, will get and keep advertisers, and will 
actually earn profits off of that model. Not to say nobody else will sell 
ads, just that it won't recoup your costs and time, or the company won't 
be satisfied and won't renew.

Instead, until the SuperNet or whatever the next iteration of the highway 
is called actually arrives, I think there needs to be a model which 
somehow tallies the secondary or indirect benefits of the web. 
Advertisers want bottom lines, because they're used to that. "Added 
value" has never to my knowledge been quantified, although I'd 
be very interested in reading any studies that attempt to do that. I.E.: 
If you put an ad here, you may not have any new sales, but X number of 
corporate decision makers will see it, and there's a statistical formula 
that says of those, it's probable that within X years, some percent will 
approach you because of name recognition. 

If you could point to a number -- of eventual sales, or eventual interest 
in a company -- due to the indirect benefits of webvertising, you could 
go sell under a new model and be successful, IMHO.

Very interested in your thoughts.

- -Jeff


Jeff Greene - Asbury Park Press - The Home News & Tribune
jgreene@injersey.com - www.injersey.com/media/pressnet & .../hnt


------------------------------

End of online-news-digest V1 #508
*********************************


From owner-online-news-digest@marketplace.com Wed Feb  7 16:13:04 1996
Received: from marketplace.com (majordom@marketplace.com [199.45.128.10]) by cnj.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA11195 ; for ; Wed, 7 Feb 1996 16:13:00 -0500