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Free-where?

© Brian Hughes

Where have all the freebie goodies gone?

I can't speak as an expert when it comes to T-shirts, hats, mugs, mouse pads and such like because I've never been into such trinkets... there's always been plenty of other people more than ready to point you in these directions.

However, during the last 12 months at least, I have been able to talk about and provide links to sites offering such things as free Internet connections and even computer systems. While this kind of deal may yet to become as extinct as the Dinosaur and the Dodo they are on the endangered species list to say the least and their days are numbered.

Why is this? It's not as simple as the old saying "if something sounds too good to be true it probably is." More accurately it's a matter of Paradise only existing in a perfect world, and that the Internet is not... now.

As tends to be the case with Golden Geese, Gold and Land Rushes, the clock is always ticking and the world is always turning. It was great while it lasted and while the bubble was still expanding, but times they are a changing.

Two forces are at work to bring the good times to an end for all us surfers and while the future isn't that grim, it will be different.

Advertising revenue has been the pot of gold financing most, if not all, of the gifts and services that have come our way with no price tag. Sad to say the reality check is that while we've all become used to those banner ads. at the top of pages we just don't click on them. Even if we do we rarely buy something or sign up for a service being offered.

Inevitably this has come to the attention of the advertisers and their bean counters and they can't be blamed for tightening the purse strings.

The most common unit of measurement used for an Internet advertising contract is CPM (cost per 1000 impressions... an impression is one display of one banner on one web page.) Over the last year a CPM rate of say 1$ has declined to around 25c... if you're lucky.

For websites that depend primarily on advertising revenue, and the majority do, this is causing horrendous problems.

Unfortunately this problem is arising at the same time that the stock value of virtually every .com (Internet) company has been in steep decline for the same period and nobody is really sure if this trend is bottoming out yet. Another bubble bursting.