Re: Re: Neat summary of Google strategy

From: "Robotech_Master"
> I'm not entirely sure what the article is getting at, but 
> this paragraph
> makes me wonder if they have any idea what they're talking 
> about.
>
> We already know how hard it has been for Facebook, despite 
> its success, to
>> make money from its network. Compare it to the phone book 
>> that the phone
>> company would give away. It was probably the most thumbed 
>> book in your house
>> - the one with the most "attention time". But that showed 
>> attention didn't
>> translate into cash.
>>
>
> How on earth does a phone book show "attention didn't 
> translate into cash"?
> Because the phone book is given away? The phone book, most 
> of which is made
> up of a big yellow section where businesses pay for 
> listings or pay through
> the nose for ads? Much like newspapers today make hardly 
> anything from
> subscription fees and machine sales and take in most of 
> their revenue
> through ads? If the phone book didn't bring in scads of 
> revenue for the
> publishers, they wouldn't publish them.
> I'm still not sure what this "Wave" thing even is, so I 
> guess I'm not in a
> position to evaluate the rest of the article. But such an 
> elementary mistake
> makes me suspicious.
> -- 
> Chris Meadows aka         | WWW: http://www.terrania.us 
> | Somebody help,
> Robotech_Master           | ICQ: 5477383  AIM: RoboMastr 
> | I'm trapped in
> [email protected] | Skype, Gizmo: Robotech_Master 
> | a sig file!
> [email protected]        | Yahoo: robotech_master_2000 
> |
>

You raise an excellent point, and I generally agree with 
what you say, set in the context of the last couple of 
decades at least.

It is just possible the writer is of hoary head and, if the 
UK experience was similar to early US experience, the 
reference is to a time when phone books were simply number 
listings of all those with a line [excluding the 
ex-directory choice] and there was no advertising; nor 
indeed a great variety of directories - in none of which 
usually is easy to find the actual number you are looking 
for!

There is something similar in the other points. Go back four 
decades and print newspapers were just about getting used to 
the idea that they could find so much advertising that a) 
the income from subscriptions no longer of critical 
importance b) there was more income (through ads) from 
getting more readers than in charging full subscription 
price. It was just a little earlier that the 'free sheets' 
started in the UK because there was so much advertising 
looking for an effective place to be.

When I think of the vastly lowered costs compared to half a 
century ago, when successful papers were pretty much 
subscription supported, I see no difficulty in the survival 
of those that can easily transfer to that or a similar 
business model. That trend is now underway online for sure.

Joseph Harris




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