An Internet moneymaker
I MADE MY first dollar on the Internet last month.
Suddenly, the problem facing big media is clearer to me than ever before. I'm now a competitor of movie studios, television stations, and major newspapers, and I've achieved this status with minimal capital expense.
So much for the old economic barriers to entry.
Earlier this summer, I traveled to Greece for research on a book. While there, I went on a fly fishing trip to Epirus, the mountainous northwestern region of Greece. I was struck by the glorious landscape, trout fishing, lovely cities, and lack of American tourists.
I was also struck by the dearth of information about the region. So, I decided to put together a website that would offer some basic information on where to fish, stay, and eat in Epirus. It also was a way for me to catch up with my students who spend much of their lives on the Web.
I'm a former newspaper editor and grew up with pulp and ink. Like nearly everyone else in America, the Internet now is a part of my life. But I've lived on the consumption side of the business equation that the Web has come to represent.
With the help of Bill Lord, a retired professor, and the
It's that step that brought into focus for me the huge change that has overtaken media around the world. The big companies are losing control because (to put it into Marxist terms) they no longer control the means of production - not as long as I have my laptop on my dining room table.
By filling out a form and submitting my website for inspection, I became a partner with Google in the new business of website advertising. Google provided me with code that I inserted into the html language of my website, and now when the website comes up on the computer screen it brings with it advertising. The ads on my website are for fishing lodges and hotels. Each time a visitor to my site clicks on an ad, I make a little money. Very little.
This of course presents me - journalist and journalism teacher - with a host of interesting dilemmas. For example, should I construct the website in a way that exploits Google's algorithms, which search for the key words that generate advertising? Or, should I create a website only with the interest of the user in mind?
This used to be the problem of publishers, not journalists. Suddenly, on the Web, I'm both.
The other dilemma is this. I love newspapers and subscribe to three of them at home. I cannot begin my day without a newspaper. I believe that the work that they do collecting and analyzing news is an essential part of a healthy democracy.
But those little Google ads that are popping on my website are chipping - more like hacking - away at newspapers by cutting into their revenue streams. A newspaper spends an enormous amount of money on its newsroom and production plants to bring me my morning paper. It needs that revenue to operate.
Google, on the other hand, spends not a dime on the collection of news. Its business, in part, is based on aggregating the work of others - or getting a cut from the advertising that appears on the websites of others. It's a brilliant business model. No wonder it has a market capitalization of $160 billion.
In a sense, I am contributing to problems of newspapers by jumping into Web publishing and accepting advertising. Is this fair? Well, fair or not, it clearly is inevitable.
Yesterday, I checked the report that Google provides its publishers who take its ads. My total earnings in my first week in business so far: $1.05. It's a far cry from the $46 billion in ad revenue earned by US newspapers last year. On other hand, I'm just one of millions with a website, and I'm guessing that my revenues next week may reach $2.
The trend is moving in my direction.
Lou Ureneck is chairman of the Department of Journalism at Boston University.
