Eight hard truths about online media

Responses:

"All the good names are taken."

Then explain why digg.com has 3500 times as much traffic as dig.com. All the single-real-word names are taken, but who says those are the good ones?

"Once you do find a name and launch a site, good luck getting the press to cover you."

Who expects the press to cover their website?

"Offline advertising won’t help you with exposure."

Who, other than major companies like Microsoft, even tries to get offline advertisement?

"If you are an established media company, your offline brand probably won’t translate into a large, ready-made online audience."

The offline brands that have international acclaim DO translate into large, ready-made online audiences. nytimes.com is ranked 113 in the world.

"Stealing the competition’s audience doesn’t work online."

The reason they give for why this doesn't work is why it does work. They're right, product is the way to build an audience... online. In the real world, Budweiser sells more than microbreweries, even though their beer is infinitely better. Without the internet, I would never have heard of Ayinger beer (small brewery near Munich in Germany), but now it's one of my favorites. The internet helps the little guy and the new guy.

"If, in spite of all of these obstacles, you are successful in building an audience, here’s your reward: low monetization rates."

Sure, because online you compute rates per view. No one is crazy enough to try to compute Walmart's profit per person who looked at a Walmart store or, better example, the New York Times profit per person who looked at an issue sitting on a newstand. If you did (if you could), I bet the rates would be quite similar.