This can be just as true today as it was when the Internet as most historical accounts say the was created in 1969.

Little has changed in this time other then the ability to get on and the means of portability of the internet.

Today we are no closer to figuring out how to make it work to make a profit then we were when it was a device for the military to communicate with.

Anyone that tells you they know how to make money off the net has never been a foot soldier in the field and fought the battles of the net or they are just out for a fast buck telling you what you want to hear.

We live and work in the battlefield 24 hours a day and understand that the internet is like a child your trying to get up to go to school. There are days the child wants to go and days the child does not want to.

Basically meaning the net doesn’t always do what you want it to.

Getting on the net is often a challenge.

Unless you’re the actual provider of the service that your using to get onto the net your always at the mercy of someone else and just how many companies actually own their own portal to the net.(Just those with a lot of money to lose, and lose money you will.)

The majority of those that live work and provide for the net are totally at the mercy of those that are their providers. Yes these people make money by the bucketful.

The server we pay for often has periods during the day when it is slow and periods when it is as fast as we pay for. We can be uploading and the service can just up and come to a crawl on us.

The same can be sad when you go to another’s site to either download or upload. You are then not only at the mercy of your provider but that companies provider.

Basically the net is the greatest device ever created by man to advertise yourself. If you set up a site to do nothing but promote yourself and what your doing the cost of what you are doing can be justified because self promotion is worth as much as you wish to invest in it.

Some companies that provide a service make money. Examples Google makes a bundle while Yahoo is on the verge of being bought by Microsoft whom owns MSN whom isn’t doing as well.

Companies that sell porno on the net make money but then again they are the only ones making money selling DVDs also.

Basically it is like a roll of the dice at a table in Las Vegas.

Some roll 7’s and 11’s while others roll snake-eyes. There is simply no uniformity as to what works to make money.

How do you make money on the net?

Old media makes it selling advertising.

The pr companies and the advertising agencies that work with old media try to talk eyeballs, cost per thousands. In other words old media talk.

Those that use the net talk of hits, page views, downloads and unique visitors. None of which exactly conforms to old media standards. What is best to use when setting advertising rates.

Hits, visitors, visits, page views: what are the differences.

Technical definition of a hit: each file sent to a browser by a web server is an individual hit

Technical definition of a page view: a page view is each time a visitor views a webpage on your site, irrespective of how many hits are generated. Pages are comprised of files. Every image in a page is a separate file. When a visitor looks at a page (i.e. a page view), they may see numerous images, graphics, pictures etc. and generate multiple hits.

For example, if you have a page with 10 pictures, then a request to a server to view that page generates 11 hits (10 for the pictures, and one for the html file). A page view can contain hundreds of hits. This is the reason that we measure page views and not hits.

Hits are not a reliable way to measure website traffic. There is a high potential for confusion here, because there are two types of 'hits'. The hits recorded by log files, and interpreted by log analysis, an second type of 'hits' counted and displayed by a hit counter. Hit counters record one hit for every time a webpage is viewed, it does not distinguish unique visitors.

Technical definition of a visit: a visit happens when someone or something (robot) visits your site. It consists of one or more page views/ hits. One visitor can have many visits to your site.

Technical definition of a visitor: a visitor is the browser of a person who accepts a cookie.

Unique visitors, are tracked by giving them a cookie, this cookie is unique to their browser. cookies are often more reliable over the long term, as many servers re-assign IP addresses on a regular basis. IP usage patterns are changing. AOL, for example, has recently implemented a rotating IP address technology, to stop log files from tracking their members' search term queries.

How reliable are cookies when tracking unique visitors? Unless the user deletes their cookies continuously, they will be measured as the same visitor with each visit.

Strictly speaking, “one visitor” means “one person” based on the definitions given above. So that if someone continuously visits your site over long periods of time, they will be recorded only as one visitor.

The basic problem is that many today have software that removes cookies regularly such as we do because we do not want our actions tracked. It also comes as standard on many computers today. While functions on computers in some cases require you have cookies enabled most do not.

Therefore it is technically possible to run up your own visitor count by disabling cookies and rotating ISPs on your own computer. Knowing this it makes old media companies think twice about putting their resources into advertising on the net.

You distrust what you do not understand. The net is still the wild frontier still an infant and changes with each day.

The future of how to make it work and make a profit from it still lies before those that are using the net today and those that will follow tomorrow and the day after.

Every day things are done that were not done the day before. As that great man of Sci-Fi so put it, “to Boldly Go Forth Where No Man Has Gone Before,” could be the motto of those that live and work on the net.

How do you tell people that work on the net full time from those that are new to it. Those that work full time on it will tell you we don’t lose as much money as we used to.

William Hoehne

June 6 2009

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