The Internet is a funny thing. It's so big and interconnected that it's easy to get caught up in the idea that you could do just about anything with it. 12 years ago I was going back to business school when the Internet boom was in full swing, and I had no doubt there must be something really cool I could do with the Internet to make money.
While in business school, in a marketing course, the teacher posed this question to the class: "What product are television networks selling?" A lot of answers were proffered. None of them were right, as I recall, and finally the professor had to clue us in. Television networks sell ... their viewers! Or, at least, a bit of their viewers attention. Hold onto that concept - we'll come back to it momentarily.
Of course, just my luck, long before I graduated (it was only a two year degree!) the boom went bust, and the economy in general went with it. When it came time to leave school not only was the Internet no longer a promising place to work, but just finding a job in any field was a challenge.
Fast forward to today.
The Internet is still with us, and it's going strong. There are some Internet-only endeavors that have taken off (Amazon, Netflix) emulating or replacing brick-and-mortar businesses (Walmart, Blockbuster) but I think most on-line business presences are an extension of a business built elsewhere. I may be oversimplifying things, but hopefully you get the gist.
Notably, two of the "giants" of the Internet are Google and Facebook. And what is the product these companies are selling? They're nothing more than the television networks of the digital age, bringing viewers to sit in front of a screen so that advertisers can connect with them. The sneaky thing about this new media is that instead of spending big bucks to create content people want to see (e.g. game shows, dramatic series, and the evening news) they rely on all of us to entertain each other. Sneaky though that may be, it also affords all of us an opportunity to profit from the enterprise. It's only fair.
So here I am, participating in the new media economy, having recently "monetized" my own little on-line media empire. I may get to cash in on the Internet after all, much to the satisfaction of my college-age self, but it turns out it's not going to replace my day job.
I'm only a month into this experiment, so these numbers have very little history behind them, but I thought I'd share them anyway. At the moment I am the proud "broadcaster" of 5 monetized YouTube videos and one general-interest blog. My oldest video has been on-line for about 18 months, and the total accumulated views of all five videos is currently 1,237.
According to Google AdSense, in February I had 58 hits on my videos, 9 of which clicked on ads, netting me $0.34 for the month. This month is only 8 days in, but so far I've had 17 views, 5 which included ad clicks, netting me another $0.12. If the trend for March holds I may be on track to make $0.46 this month, easily beating last month's record.
The good news: my view-to-click ratio has risen substantially (16% in February, 29% so far in March). The bad news: AdSense has a minimum payment policy of $100, so if the current trend stays flat I shouldn't expect to see any payouts for another 302 months.
I've got plenty of time to figure out how to spend my advertising earnings, since the check won't be arriving until May of 2037. I can hardly wait.
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