As a history major, I tend to look at the “historical accidents” into which a given person was born. From that, we can make some assessments about the paradigms in which that person or culture operates.

For example, almost all of us were born into the “historical accident” of mass media and the Madison Avenue advertising (aka Mad Men), so we think that is how the world works. It is our paradigm and it’s really difficult for us to escape it.

I came across a post by Scott Brinker that basically said, “sorry, there’s no way that advertising will die because our current systems won’t support it.”

When I saw that, however, I said, “here’s a situation of not escaping a paradigm.”

And even if that isn’t the case, the facts seem to support it, since according to the MediaPost Blog, 8% of Internet Users account for 85% of all advertising clicks…and my hunch is that they can’t really support all of those who are paying for advertising to make the ROI worth it.

What Scott didn’t see, in my opinion, is that there are plenty of ways to generate revenue sans advertising.

First, there’s a whole slew of examples where you go with a Freemium model as Fred Wilson has suggested and was wonderfully explained in Chris Anderson’s book, FREE.

Beyond that, however, I see a “small a” advertising model (HT: Adriana Lukas) that is based on a super-distribution concept.

In that world, each of us serves as a business channel for the products we recommend and endorse (either as Raving Fans or simply because we trust them) and the social network platforms serve as the facilitators.

So, for example, right now, if I want to recommend a book via Amazon, I have to go there and get the link and embed it myself.

Now, imagine a platform where you just type in the product or service and the link to the product on the retailers site is made automatically (from your status update, for example), your account is credited if a sale is made, and the platform gets a cut of that?

Facebook’s COO said “the future is social, not search” and I think what he realizes is that, despite the fact that they are making money off of traditional advertising, that the real money for them is in monetize “social currency” in a way that doesn’t harm inter-personal relationships.

The takeaway? Your “social currency” comes from a true, genuine, authentic interest in cultivating your community. Continue to focus on them now…before you really need them to help you.

 

This post musically inspired by...Doobie Brothers, China Grove

 

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