Unpinning the hopes for advertising 

The web's abuzz with Dave's Crash of Google barometer. Bloggers and tech pundits sure do love to talk about Google, don't they? It is a big deal, I suppose; the company is a juggernaut.

I don't pretend to have an insider's grasp on the net economy, but I've observed the cycles, and I worked for a startup during the other bubble, and wanted to take a stab at the question of solutions to making the web generate income, beyond the prediction.

Would it be naive to equate a Google crash with the thesis that advertising can't make all the Web 2.0 dreams come true any more than it could in 1999? The M.O. for the most of the startups is build an audience and the revenue will come later, and though they don't always come right out and say so -- possibly because they don't know -- it seems like most of the hopes are pinned on advertising.

I keep thinking that it might be time to rethink micropayments. The conventional wisdom is that MS Wallet and CyberCash were ill-conceived and poorly executed, therefore the whole idea of users paying directly for services rendered is a horrible idea. But maybe there's a skip in that logic and it isn't such an awful model -- maybe we just weren't ready for it until now.

I mean, iTunes is doing pretty well. PayPal is quite ubiquitous. When Skype Out came along I didn't give it a second thought before buying a little bank of minutes I wasn't sure I would use. I know I'm a lot more willing than I was five years ago to try a monthly service that dribbles down my PayPal account. I'm not unusual. (Well, not in that way.)

I think the key for consumer services is to keep the pricing teeny tiny on subscriptions and banked credits. Price the services so they're like the pack of gum you grab on impulse because it's right there in the checkout line.