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  • From: Steven Champeon <schampeo AT hesketh.com>
  • To: InterNetWorkers <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Justifying a Web Presence
  • Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 14:36:12 -0500


on Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 01:52:11PM -0500, Paul Cory wrote:
> I find myself presented with a problem at work: a push to turn the Wake
> County Public School System's Website into a profit center.

Sell porn. It's the only truly viable, reliable, and consistent means
of making money on the Internet without a significant investment in
time, effort, style/design/branding, content generation, maintenance,
or actually selling physical goods or services. Of course, that
wouldn't work on a public school Web site - imagine the controversy.
Guess you're out of luck.

> The folks pushing this idea believe that there is pile of easily obtainable
> money to be had in the form of banner ads and affiliate programs.

They're wrong. Or, more to the point, they're not entirely wrong, but
they seem to have some grave misunderstandings about the nature of a
publicly funded service.

Ask them if 911 should be advertiser supported.

operator: "Hello, this is Wake Country 911."
caller: "Hello, I have an emergency here! My wife has fallen down and..."
operator: "Wake County 911 is brought to you by Arthur Daniels Midland,
supermarket to the world, and by a grant from..."
caller: "I think she's going into cardiac arrest!"
operator: "the John D. and Catherine T. McArthuruthers Foundation,
funding public service through corn feed processing subsidies"
caller: "Help me! I don't know CPR! Please..."
operator: "and by the Grundy Throckmorton Fund, robber barons with a
heart, helping spread the gospel of agribusiness to the third world"
caller "..."
operator: "how may I direct your call?"
caller: "never mind."

Get real.

> My question is: are they right? There has been mention here lately
> of banner ad networks and affiliate programs either disbanding or
> cutting back severely on their payouts.

That's correct. Advertising on the Web doesn't work, or if it does, it
only works for targeted placements on high-traffic sites. Your site is
not likely to have enough traffic to get anything but the worst "punch
the monkey" banners from the most ridiculous of low-end banner networks.

And then you've got the question of whether or not you want to
compromise the privacy of your audience to make a few bucks. Many
people do, apparently, but it's potentially controversial. Never mind
the truth - imagine if someone writes an editorial regarding cookies
and how they can read your hard drive, change your home electricity
from AC to DC, make your cats sterile, etc. (I've heard similarly
outlandish claims) and then points out that the public school system
Web site supports such activities because of its use of ad banners.
Do you want to be the one in the public hearing who has to explain how
cookies actually work to a fearful soccer mom?

Check out the IAB for more info on online advertising:

http://www.iab.net/

As for affiliate programs - they're most successful WRT books and CDs.
Should a public school system site be selling pop music? I can see it
now: "support your local school board! get Christina Aguilera's latest
no-talent outing here for more than you'd pay at a local record store,
so we can pay for the ability to offer you these great deals!"

Books, maybe. But surely not enough to pay for a full-time Webmaster
and programmer and/or bandwidth. Think about it - even the best
affiliate programs (fatbrain, for example) only pay 15% of the
purchase price (usually already discounted 10%-20% off cover price),
which amounts to more than most authors earn in royalties, sure, but
is still only a couple bucks for most books. In the year I've been a
member of several affiliate programs (in a half-hearted attempt to
make more than my meager royalties on a book I wrote) I've made maybe
$500. It took me about a week to set up all the programs and write
some software to track when they were being used, another week to
research and sign up for the services, an hour a week to keep track of
them in the beginning, etc. So, it's amounted to less than minimum
wage for the time invested. Certainly not enough to pay a programmer
or Webmaster to set the programs up in the first place.

> What is the state of Web advertising today? Are the big banner ad networks
> paying out a lot of money, or are the returns modest? Is selling ads into a
> local market easy, or is the competition with other local media (TV, radio,
> newspapers) fierce enough to keep the bottom line thin?

If your audience is extremely well-defined, has a propensity for clicking
on banner ads or otherwise buying things, comes to your site often, then
maybe. We've got a couple of clients that this is true of, and they are
making money from ads. But the majority of sites don't have this sort of
audience, or if they do, can't really provide proof of that.

> How would you suggest a public school system use its Web presence: to
> directly generate money, or to enhance the value of its services, or to make
> it easier and cheaper to communicate with customers and partners, or some
> combination thereof?

What services does a public school system Web site provide? Who are
it's customers and partners?

> Any feeling on whether, if you were buying Web advertising, you would buy it
> on a public school system Website?

No. Even if it were an attractive business proposition, I'd consider the
potential backlash to be a risk not worth taking. But that's me.

> What would be your reaction to finding advertising on a public
> school system or other governmental Website?

That would depend on the advertising. I'm already appalled that Taco
Bell can be found in school cafeterias, frankly. So it'd have to be
serving some public service, IMHO. Blatant commercial advertising
has no purpose on a publicly funded Web site.

How would you determine what is deemed acceptable advertising?
Obviously, many parents of schoolchildren smoke. So do you let tobacco
companies advertise? I guess not. How about the folks who make

textbooks? No, that's a conflict of interest, I'd say. How about local
area businesses? Maybe. But surely there's a more profitable form of
advertising for /them/, like buying space in football game programs.
How about pharmaceutical companies? Hospitals? Drug abuse counseling
centers? As soon as you cross the line into services that are
potentially useful to the public you're serving, you have to ask
yourself whether you should provide such announcements/advertisements
gratis because everyone else does...

I just don't see it working out.

My $0.02,
Steve

--
tired of being an underappreciated functionary in a soulless machine?
hesketh.com is hiring: http://www.hesketh.com/careers/




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