21 year old going to Only in the tech business are companies born with neither a clear reason for being nor a clue as to how they’ll produce profits. Then again, rejoice: The U.S. financial system may be imploding as you read this, but the Bay Area startup culture is alive and well.
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- Adam Lashinsky, The true meaning of Twitter
No clear reason for existence? Perhaps. Clueless profit centers? Absolutely.
The eyeballs equals ad dollars logic doesn’t hold the weight it once did, but this is a good thing. Web entrepreneurs and their new entrants to the interwebs will have to rely on making money outside of advertising. Consumer and corporate spending on data mining, e-commerce, digital goods, and other non-advertising activities has a higher tangible impact on the real world. As these more tangible models replace ad models the intersection of the web and the real-world will become further intertwined and clear-cut. This dose of reality should make the web a better, more clutter-free, meaningful place. The advertising that does survive on the web will have to provide the same level of entertainment of super-bowl ads or be aligned with consumers’ goals, not competing for their attention.