Big websites and economy

[OVERLROD]

I just watched a short documentary about these big websites, like YouTube, MySpace, Google and so on, and how much profits, in millions, do the companys who own them get and I'm kinda wondering, how can a website make so much money? It can't all be from just advertisement can it?

Oh, and there also the thing that that some of such big sites, especialy MySpace, used to (Or maybe still does) distribute spyware and ad-aware, and install stuff like toolbars without the users promition. WTF's the point of that? Who gets anything good out of these things?

... Dunno, just a few thoughts that ran thrugh my mind

[ShaDoW]

You'd think a documentary would explain these things really.

If you just think about the whole spyware thing logically, it explains itself. The company of whatever it is your installing, receives money from the company that created the toolbar. Because its a form of advertisement.

Many programs still offer to install some extra toolbar or whatever during installation. But this is often with free programs these days, so that whoever wrote the program still gets some cash out of it without having to make his users pay for it.

Large websites like Google, Myspace and Youtube generate loads of traffic, so I can see it making profit from mere advertisements. But there's also investments, deals, sponsorships and such going on, that generate cashflow.

[Sathor]

I would not be amazed at all if a small ad on Google would cost more than a 30 second ad clip on the greatest german TV channels during the Bundesliga (national soccer championchip) ... and believe me, this is expensive

[Blink]

Last time I heard, Myspace has 12% of the advertising on the whole internet. Obviously it could be wrong but at a glance it has 197,401,525 total accounts. If only a quarter of those were in use you could still guarentee a stupid amount of cash from advertising.

[Cunnah]

The main reason website adverts command a high price on certain websites is because there viewing is quantifiable. On TV viewer ratings are based on an average, ok its fairly accurate but not as those on the internet. Online a company can be told exactly how many people see there advertisement because of the number of hits a particular website gets, they can also be guaranteed which demographic would view it by the content of the website. Whats more in certain cases they can get an instant sale through hot linking and are able to cash in on those impulse buys. On TV at the very best the viewer has to get up and go to the telephone and ring up which gives them time to change their minds. The final thing is the 'wild west' syndrome of the internet, they can get around certain laws that would apply if they were to advertise on TV.