Tags:
Journalism of Courage
FEBRUARY 13: It is time for the most hilarious con games when those rushing into Web-based businesses and others providing them with ad-Venture Capital are clueless about what will lead to sustainable revenues. After all, nothing needs to be real in the dot.com world. For instance, there is this site launched with a lot of fanfare this month. The very next day it claimed live Net coverage of a talk by a Silicon Valley whiz. An industrialist sat on the dais checking the Web action on a notebook computer and lobbed questions to the whiz. Behind him a screen hid the computer which controlled the 8220;live show8221;.
The industrialist says 8220;there is a lady out here who wants your email ID8221; and the tittering audience presumes she is in cyberspace. Nobody notices the dot.com company staffers rushing pieces of paper to feed the show through the nerve centre behind the screen. After all, what does it take to dupe a room full of corporate bigwigs whose email is operated by secretaries? Then there is this new site splurging Rs 1 crore a week on advertising. The new mantra of the dot.com business is that advertising brings in eyeballs. Who cares if that is true, as long as the advertising is paid for by venture capital. All they need is a few people who spend time logging on to a site to 8220;generate8221; an impressive quota of eyeballs.
