Monetizing the Net: Creating Profits Through Anything but Advertising

Is traditional advertising dead? Is the use of carefully crafted messages, pushed at passive and perhaps unwilling consumer, paid for by sender, losing its power to influence purchasing decisions? Does traditional advertising need to be replaced? Will Monetizing the Internet websites continue their explosive growth, and will virtual friends become as important as real ones? Will referrals from social network friends - willing, two directional dialogs and website resident - replace traditional advertising as sources of product information? Can advertisers or network website owners control these dialogs so that they produce demonstrable benefits for sellers rather than for website users? Can network owners monetize this power and control and charge for referrals as a new form of advertising, without destroying the credibility of the message and indeed without destroying the websites themselves? These are questions that marketing and business groups are struggling with now. The answers will have an enormous impact on IT: IT will be called upon not only to determine, implement, and maintain the available mechanisms for monetizing websites, but also to help determine whether acquisitions of, investments in, or partnerships with MySpace, Facebook, and other more specialized Monetizing the Internet sites represent a return to the irrational exuberance of the dot.com era, a hedging bet, or wise investments unlocking hidden synergies.

The always opinionated and frequently amusing Professor Clemons will share his views to help you understand how IT can take a balanced, active, and forward-thinking role in developing revenue-generating Internet models that supports your organization's business objectives - and hopes that you will do the same.

New Year's Eve in a virtual hot tub. Was it for this the chips grew fast?