3 Words on the Future of Content: Alternate Revenue Streams.

The seemingly universal assumption that advertising revenue will save us, will keep art and culture online solvent, will fill the gap between VC and buy-out that most people actually consider a business, is by far the largest threat I see to the internet, moreso than telcos that think they own everything created online, more than absurd copyright lobbyists, more than politicians who actually conceive of the thing as a ‘series of tubes’.

We’re a world that, by and large, doesn’t have a plan. Some people will survive, and thrive, on ad revenue online. Off the top of my head, we have Google and Gawker. Google will survive because they make money from more content than any one media brand, any one company, could ever create. Gawker will survive because the association with their brand is worth at least as much as the ad campaign, and because they have a demonstrated willingness to blur the line between selling advertising, and selling integration into the editorial content of their properties. I don’t know where Nick Denton’s line is, and I don’t care - he gets it, and he will make money.

But if your plan is 1. Get traffic 2. ??? 3. Profit, you should know that banner ads aren’t really going to cut it as a step two for a huge number of companies. And the point where waiting for the rates for online advertising to go up seemed intelligent was about 5 years back.

We need to get working on a new plan. One that goes further than selling eyeballs. The internet depends on it.