Everyone knows that there’s money on the internet. We all use it and we are constantly reading stories about how people create a website and become a millionaire overnight. This disillusionment is mainly attributed to the assumption that advertisers will pay huge amounts of money to sell a product on your site. If you have the traffic, they’ll sell their products- simple formula eh? But like Mr. Garfield speculates in “the revolution will not be monetized” is that one day this buddle filled with millions and millions of dollars from advertisers will burst, because online advertising is not effective.
Sure there are some tactics that are starting to be exploited, like the ability to mine data that’s relevant to the specific individual. This is considered the holy grail in the advertising world, simply because it takes the power and put it’s in the hands of the user. If you can figure out what interest a person, what catches they’re attention, then you could obviously know what they’re prone to spend their money on. This is essential in the marketing world because it takes the hard part of the equation. It blatantly portrays what the person is already going to buy, you just now have to convince them to buy your specific brand. Even though some websites have mastered this technique, like Google and Facebook, the way the stock market values internet sites is enormously incorrectly. The thought that a website can revenue $100 billion dollars in a year is just ridiculous. I mean, advertisers do pay a hefty amount for certain information but to believe that a website, a mere page on the internet, will bring in billions of dollars for your shoe company is outrageous to me.
I believe that’s how Mr. Garfield feels as well. There’s a reason why at the very end of the article is states that Amazon.com will be dominating force for the next twenty years-its because they’re not relying on selling interests. Amazon suggests certain items, but they definitely don’t force feed in down users’ necks with ads all over the site. I do feel like the value for social media websites are stratospheric for a reason but there will be a time that people realize what they’re investing into. And I just hope I’m no where near the investors when that bubble bursts.