What's The Next Way To Make Money On The Internet?

Now the whole world is in financial crisis and we can say that the Internet is in winter. "Web 2.0" was created and defined in a brainstorm in 2010 as the "platform". Most websites are still using advertisements to earn money, because all of them think that the Internet is a big media.


Is it true that the Internet is a large media now? Well, at least I don't think so. We can only say that Internet was a big media when Web 1.0 was very popular, as the core of Web 1.0 is "contents". Content-matching is a really wonderful way of earning money and this has lead to many successful Internet corporations such as Google, Yahoo, etc to implement this idea. But now we are no longer in Web 1.0 environment - we need to change. Some websites like Facebook are using social advertisements and of course it's much better than traditional ones as users will pay more attention to social advertisements since it's related to the functions of the website.



Do you know why advertisements can help us to earn money? When you see an advertisement, you may be interested in this product or service. This mindset will then "ask" you to click the advertisement to learn more about it. In the end, you may even purchase this product or enjoy this service. But why you can see the right advertisement that matched your interests very often? This is because when you're looking for something on the Internet, the content-matching will start working. Hence, you can get most attractive advertisement waiting for you to click on it.

However in platforms, it's quite different. As you're reading your friends' profile on Facebook, you may be interested in talking to your friends or playing with the interesting applications. This is when the folks in Facebook put up advertisements at the sidebar related to fan pages or applications. I personally feel that most users will be less interested in advertisements as compared to the usage of the platform. Therefore, private ad sales isn't a good idea in social networks websites. It would be better if some of these platforms offer subscription plans that provides exclusive features which the free account doesn't have. For example, the Flickr's PRO account which cost users $24.95 annually allows users to upload unlimited images storage and access to origninal files.

I remember when CNN played videos in Facebook which has attracted tons of users tp watch them. CNN is working with TV companies to promote its videos is. So wow do they promote? In traditional way, we may consider about advertise our videos to get more viewers. But CNN is very clever. The folks there have thought of a very good idea - why not play the videos in popular websites directly? Finally, CNN's videos have managed to attract thousands of clicks and users were posting comments to give their thoughts and opinions of them.

Why CNN can successfully promote its products and services? The money is not important, the idea is the most important! That is the new thing in Web 2.0.

After much considerations, I've found out that CNN was actually doing Channel Marketing. They used a channel from social networks websites. One of the advantages of Internet is "instant" and by letting more people know means money! To use advertisement is good, but you need to match. Otherwise, many visitors cannot get the perfect advertisements and ignore them. You will then lose the opportunity to earn money from these visitors. But using Channel Marketing is different. You don't need to show anything to all users, all you need is to discover a channel and how to get more visitors without paying more.

Channel Marketing for Web 2.0 websites also benefits the owner of the websites. Their pockets will get deeper as Channel Marketing can create value! Creating value means making money and they can them by giving out the channels.

After thinking more about this, I've found out that there are many channels we can use and a part of them have been used before. For example, using channels of search engines is called SEO, using channels of video sharing websites is called Video-Marketing, and using channels of business sites is called e-Business.

Is the focus of Internet-Business is turning away from advertisements and gearing toward the channels? Well, only time can tell the truth.