How much money is really on the internet?
This is my response to the readings of Chris Anderson and Fred Wilson on WIRED.
Email, games, news, videos and even the chance to have your own webpage (Myspace and Facebook) are all free thanks to the growth of the internet.
Now there are even music artists, such as Radiohead, that are telling people to download their music online and to pay however much they want for the album.
I am sure most loyal fans will pay some amount, but some people would obviously not pay a cent.
Even rock legend Gene Simmons from KISS, criticised Radiohead for giving away their music (See this story on what Gene Simmons plans to do – http://www.aol.com.au/celebrity/story/radiohead-blasted-by-veteran-rockers-kiss-for-giving-their-music-away-for-free/604011/index.html .)
While it seems like there are so many free things on the internet, it looks like the advertisers and sellers are taking advantage of this. Chris Anderson calls this the “third-party system.”
It is essentially where the advertisers are paying the publishers or the websites for the audience.
However, even with newspapers, they do not make profit from the actual cost of the newspaper.
Most of their revenue comes from advertising.
It is the same with free-to-air TV.
However, newspapers will obviously not get the same amount of revenue online from an advertiser than if it was in print.
When I think of what a media business model online is, I suppose I think of the advertising that you can find on a typical webpage.
The banner-ads and the annoying pop-ups.
However, when I was reading the article by Fred Wilson, I was surprised to see that there was such a big list of different ways to make money on the internet.
It is more than just advertisements – but even licensing and sale of information about the websites users.
