HOW do you make money on the Internet? In the late 1990s, this was the question on everybody's lips. The answers bandied about included “building communities”, “ensuring stickiness”, “B2C”, “B2B” and many others. Buzzwords came and went, and eventually nearly everyone went bust. The problem was that advertising revenue was insufficient to keep most sites running, and there was no standard way to charge for things on the Internet. There still isn't. Getting people to type their credit-card details into a web page raises security concerns, and makes purchases of less than a few dollars impractical. A handful of sites selling books, CDs, flights and holidays look as though they will survive. But most news and content sites are losing money, and many are now trying to introduce subscription fees. Many more have folded. Why should things be any different on the mobile Internet?
# posted by Unknown : Thursday, December 16, 2004
