On Friday, 7 September 2001 6:06 PM
Tim Romero wrote:
>> Perhaps those whose feathers are ruffled by Daniel's
>> assertion that most i-mode sites are not profitable
>> can provide a few examples of sites that are.
The whole point of the issue is NOT whether profitable sites exist or
not, but that without concise facts of some sort nobody can or _should_
say.
To define profitability (as I'm sure you are well aware) you need to
decide what is capital investment and what is running costs/maintenance.
Is the initial development of the site investment ? Usually it is,
hence it's capital expenditure not expense.
And at what point does development investment become maintenance which
would factor against profitability ?
How are Client acquisition costs being accounted ?
The likely reason that Daniel got blank stares when he asked is because
the owners of the site often simply don't know the exact answer just
yet, and really can't. It's too early.
None of our clients would be able to give a consise answer, but then I
know some _very_ big companies that couldn't answer that question for
their Corporate website or intranet either so what does it really say.
Nobody expects a new automobile factory to return the capital investment
in the first year (or 10) but somehow that logic gets applied to web
sites.
Of the couple of sites I know I simply can not say for sure if they are
or will be making a profit (even if I would break confidence)
Yes, they have cash coming in, the amount is growing.
They are spending/have spent more on building the site than the cash
coming in now.
The cost of hosting the site is WAY less than the cash coming in.
In about 12-18 months the accountants will do their job and some real
figures will surface, then we'll know. It's generally too early for
case studies at this point.
Its a frontier damm it! the ONLY way to find out what works is for
someone to get out there and do it, succeed or fail, refine and try
again.
Hats off to the people who take such risks, they are people that have
driven every advancement of mankind, and without them we'd still be
shivering in the trees.
IMHO It's just fundamentally wrong to discourage initiatives simply
because we lack the information right now and that's what articles like
the "Dirty Little Secret" can do.
If/when we have the historical information and whether its bad or good
then by all means lets publish it, comment on it and write oppinions
then let the me-too's have their turn.
Just lets get the facts BEFORE we publish the oppinions and not try to
pass off unsupported oppinions as anything more than that.
Regards,
David Davies
http://www.intadev.com
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Received on Fri Sep 7 15:23:39 2001