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Make Money Fast Online

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the black-and-white-and-oh-you've-heard-this-one dept.

A story in a magazine for dead-tree newspaper editors notes that many of the internet operations established in conjunction with newspapers are actually making money. Interesting stuff. Note that they're not making money from banner ads, but from classified ads.

24 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Finally... by intermodal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    somebody using the 'net to profit off the content creators rather than the viewers. Sounds like they're being paid for for exposure rather than the content posting itself. Well done, I say!

    --
    In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
  2. Soo.... by Verizon+Guy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Note that they're not making money from banner ads, but from classified ads

    Does this mean that Slashdot is going to start a new Classifieds section?

    --

    Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski

    1. Re:Soo.... by leviramsey · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, that could make some money. I can see them now...

      LONELY 18 yo SWM, geek, seeks 21 year old SWF to be my Amidala.
      FIRST POST SCRIPT for sale. Fr15t script to get FP written in a blend of Perl, 6502 assembly, LISP, SQL, and ALGOL 60. Got a girlfriend; she said it had to go :-(.
    2. Re:Soo.... by Micah · · Score: 2

      Dunno, but I wrote a Classifieds plugin for Slashcode. Never really got around to using it or releasing it though...

  3. I'm confused by Inexile2002 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Am I supposed to register for the NYTimes or not?

  4. I can vouch for web classfieds.... by H3XA · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... I get my Aussie news from smh.com.au and the other day after reading the news I decided to go see what the car market was like for Sport Coupes. I was very impressed by drive.com.au - it makes decent use of web connected databases and hypertext to provide a service that dead-tree cannot (quick comparisons, searches, specifications, web reviews, etc). It makes the shopping "experience" so much easier I can see why it is popular enough to be profitable.

    BTW - the careers classifieds are quite good as well if you are in Australia and looking for a job (professional).

    - HeXa

  5. Wow! That makes two! by Eric_Cartman_South_P · · Score: 4, Funny
    So now there are two ways to make money on the web.

    1) Porn (yeah, not pr0n, I actually typed "it".)

    2) Classified.

    Put the two together and you have a cash cow. Idiotic sarcasim aside (which is hard for me to do) has this been done? Do any legal brothels (Nevada?) have web pages that take some form of e-commerce? What mixes are there of pr0n and classifieds... I bet they all make money.

  6. They don't need encouragement for that! by Daetrin · · Score: 2
    So Mr. Clark Gilbert of Harvard seems to think that the online newspapers aren't doing enough to collect email addresses and use them to generate extra revenue.

    How hard is it to find out where a Harvard professor lives? But I could make a lot of money selling _that_ address!

    --
    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    1. Re:They don't need encouragement for that! by Com2Kid · · Score: 2

      So Mr. Clark Gilbert of Harvard seems to think that the online newspapers aren't doing enough to collect email addresses and use them to generate extra revenue.

      How hard is it to find out where a Harvard professor lives? But I could make a lot of money selling _that_ address!

      Yah I'll second that, this is what the fuck is wrong with business education in this nation, no freakin ethics. Well there /are/ ethics classes but they mostly consist of figuring out how much you can piss somebody off before they won't buy your shit anymore. . . .

      Beh, that guy should not be allowed to teach anyplace in the US, or abroad for that matter. What the fuck is wrong with him?

      Oh yah, he is a suit trainer, never mind. . .

      --
      Need help treating your acne? Come here!
  7. Wow... by NanoGator · · Score: 2

    Imagine creating a service people were willing to pay for, and then charging a reasonable price that is profitable!

    Too bad nobody ever said this in 1998...

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  8. Our solution... by rockwellpa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We partnered with a local print paper, http://adpak.org, to provide web services to their clients. This works out great for our company, http://cfwebworks.com, and theirs. They utilize exisiting sales reps. to sell our services, and in turn they get a small percentage of each project. The print paper is not taxed with a learning/working a new technology, yet they can still profit from it. It's great for us because it has helped us to gain visibility in the local market.

  9. Re:Wow! That makes two! by leviramsey · · Score: 3, Informative

    Already done

  10. Making money off the 'net by deblorvayn · · Score: 2, Funny

    On a TV show called 'Life Support' we have here in Australia, they put forward a really good way to make money off the internet.

    Basically, what you do is set up a website with some pictures of yourself as a 6 year old. All the pedaphiles will begin to email you and want to meet you.

    Once you've reeled in a pedaphile, write back saying "My parents don't love me. They won't by me a Playstation 2. How will I know you love me?".

    At this point, Mr. Pedaphile will send you a playstation 2 so that you'll meet him. You then sell the new playstation2 on Ebay.

    Another up-side is that the pedaphiles usually send you a CD full of hard core porn. You'll be the envy of all your sick-friends with the collection you'll make.

  11. One of the biggest problems by inkswamp · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The article only touches on it briefly, but one of the biggest problems with making money from online newspapers is not the technology, not the feasibility of it, but rather getting people out of the old way of thinking. Some of it is ignorance. Some is fear of change.

    I'm a web developer for a major, regional newspaper and I see it on a regular basis. There is interest in advertising online amongst advertisers. The real problem is getting sales reps out of the mode that print is the only way to go. The few reps who take an interest in selling online get almost immediate results. We've watched reps reluctantly go off to sell online and come back stunned by the response (however, the nature of a sales rep's job makes it easy to forget that); other reps claim that they spend all their time convincing advertisers that print is the way to go, and can't dilute that message by bringing online sales into it (and if that sounds like an excuse... well....)

    The problem isn't limited to sales reps. Others (and I am not kidding about this) think the Internet is a "fad." I've heard that term kicked around by many people in the newspaper business. Watching people put the Internet in the same category as hula hoops or pet rocks gives me a real sense of what we're up against. Some of our reporters and editors express resentment in "giving our work away for free" online.

    It's a frustrating experience, but from my perspective, the core problem is changing the way people think, particularly those who have the power to guide these kinds of things to profitability.

    --
    --Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
    1. Re:One of the biggest problems by clark625 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I find your comments interesting. TV has been around over fifty years now (though popular for less time than that), and its popularity has really crippled newspapers. There used to be multiple newspapers per town, and extra editions available in the evenings when conditions warranted it.

      Nowadays, if you want news, you flip on CNN. Or maybe one of their competitors. The newspaper tends to merely repeat information one could have gotten from the TV. But the newspapers found a nich--they could go much more in depth in detail because it doesn't matter how long it will take to read. Sure, there are space requirements, but information can be condensed.

      So what I find most interesting is that some newspapers still believe that TV is a fad. And you know what? They are sorta right. And so are the people who believe that the internet is a fad. My opinion is that very soon, people will refer to the internet before flipping on a TV to get news. To prove this point, look at what happened on 9/11--people at work just slammed cnn.com and the other news sites. Most businesses don't have TV access--and if they do, they don't make it available to all.

      Newspapers are ideal for internet publications. They are used to written forms of media. They know how to place ads on a page in such ways that they will draw attention. TV's only option is to actually break the content up and force you to watch an advertisement (or change channels). I believe that newspapers should be much better capable of handling this new media.

      But, like you say, many newspapers aren't committed to the internet. They don't see how their current business can easily integrate into a viable online presence. It's sad that the authoritative news site on the internet is cnn.com, which actually has to work outside its own niche to produce. This is hardly efficient.

      Anyways, like I said before--TV is sorta a fad. It has reached its peak in terms of news content (and I would venture that entertainment content has been piss-poor for years now). And at some point, the internet will peak, too. Probably with some media advancement like virtual reality to the consumer. That would allow TV companies to re-take the lead. Just imagine not merely seeing the news, but actually getting to "be" on location and watching the events occur. It's all just a long, drawn out competition and it's hard to say who will eventually win out.

      --
      Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
  12. But is this not how it worked... by SerpentMage · · Score: 2

    When paper newspapers did classifieds, was that not the same result? I thought newspapers made quite a bit of money from classifieds, hence why every newspaper has them. And the Toronto Saturday Star is TONS FILLED with them.

    --

    "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
    "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
  13. Whoa! by brooks_talley · · Score: 5, Funny

    This almost seems to suggest that there's more money in extending current business models than there is in inventing brand-new, unproven, arrogrant business models based on the sheer genius of second-year-in-the-real-world-MBA's.

    Who would have thought? First people bring porn online and make good money, now people bring classifieds online and make money. Next thing you know, there'll be online auction sites! Wow, there's lots of money to be made by charging for valuable content! Who would've thought?

    Why is it so surprising that "Give us $15 and we'll run your classified ad online" makes money, while "Give us nothing while we establish market share by giving away our content, or, if we start to lose money, give us nothing while we download weird spyware that crashes your machine, or, failing that, give us nothing but please look at our flash 12.0 ads that only require a 4MB download, or maybe give us nothing while we figure out what new direction to take our business in" companies are failing left and right. Is it really that hard to figure out?

    Perceived value = real value. Simple as that.

    Cheers
    -b

  14. Re:Online Classifieds? by bluGill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When I see an advertisement in the local paper, either online or dead tree, I'm confident that it is someone local to me. I call them up, go see it in person, and if I like it I bring it home. No worrys about that e-bay auction that Atari in mint condition that turns out to be made of cholate mint, no worry about buying a $1000 item from a seller who has been selling cheap stuff to get a good rating, and is now skipping town with my money.

    E-bay is okay, but I don't like waiting for that auction to be over (and in the mean time I see a good deal elsewhere, but I still have the high bid)

    Local is the key. I won't look at the Boone Iowa classifieds, but I will look at the Buffalo, Minnesota clasifieds. This is also good for advertiseers who need to serve local clients. Most slashdot readers would not take their car to Autoworks in Rockford MN (the owner is a good friend of mine), but if they could reach all the slashdot readers in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis they might advertise on slashdot. However reaching the Asian readers is a waste of their money.

  15. Are they happy about it though: by aengblom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Note that they're not making money from banner ads, but from classified ads.

    The question though. Are they happy about it?

    What do I mean? Classifieds are THE most profitable part of dead-tree newspapers. A major reason newspapers WENT online is because they feared their classified business would be stolen by web sites. Hopefully--and I say this because I READ newspapers and Web sites--the demand for classifieds can support both.

    [Disclaimer: Newspaper Association of America Slashdotted so I didn't read the article]

    --


    So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
    1. Re:Are they happy about it though: by Lord+Ender · · Score: 3, Interesting

      People misunderstand what the internet IS. It gives people what they want. If they want classifieds, they will find them on the internet. If you give them something they don't want (adverts) they will ignore it. Boom. The nature of the internet. Giving people exactly want they want and nothing else.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  16. Go figure by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 2

    Shoving Big Fucking Ads in peoples' faces doesn't work, but allowing them to voluntarily view ads for things which they actually want does. Who would've thunk it? Certainly not Slashdot.

  17. Spook by alexburke · · Score: 4, Funny

    Note that they're not making money from banner ads, but from classified ads.

    I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to divulge the actual nature of the ads themselves, since they're classifi*WHACK*

    Ow! That really hurt! I mean, no, really, who throws a shoe?!

  18. nothing new here by David+Jao · · Score: 3, Informative

    Jakob Nielsen has been saying for almost five years that newspapers will have to use classified ads, not banner ads to make money.

  19. Meet the new media, same as the old media by babbage · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Of course, the most profitable part of a traditional newspaper is also the classifieds. Think about it -- classifieds are pretty much the only advertisements that people actually want to look through. The rest of the ads are just distractions, but classifieds -- want ads, job listings, movie listings, personals, etc -- are actually attractions, bringing in readers & revenues.

    And even though they're dirt simple -- no need to pay salaries for journalists, editors, illustrators & other creative talent -- a huge fraction of a paper's regular readers will spend lots of time poring over the daily classified ads. In other words, they're not just a big source of income, they're also a small expense.

    If marketers are just waking up to this now, they've been asleep at the wheel for years.

    --
    DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL