When advertising budgets shrink, the CPM and CPC declines.  If you have spent a lot of time and money getting traffic to your website and have high fixed costs ,  your operations will be affected.   If you have diversified  and have low overheads , you can survive.

Interesting presentation with numbers. I am very frugal and do not like to waste money, so at least the next one year should not be a problem . I only wish there was a reliable marketplace where Indian websites/online businesses on sale would be listed. Most venture capitalists will want their money back soon.

I have always been fascinated by financial systems worldwide, you can never live beyond your means forever. Seems there may be a repeat of Bretton Woods

Having worked in the corporate world for several years, I find that Web 2.0 is very irrelevant to most businesses. Companies spend a lot of time and money collating information which is proprietary in nature and will never share the information freely with their competitors.

I make money online,  but I have spent a lot of time and money experimenting to find out what works and what does not. The knowledge I have is not coding, which is basically a+a = 2a . Why should I share it with others for the sake of friendship or networking?

Other than startups flush with money from Venture Capitalist, most of the major spenders online are small and medium enterprises, and they will never share their trade secrets easily. In fact Web 2.0 makes corporate espionage easier, so no well run non-internet business will promote many aspects of Web 2.0.

Information stolen from Just Dial ( I wonder why I cannot locate the original article on the Times of India website)

One of the most frustrating things about having an online business in India, is that other Indian internet companies judge you by the number of staff ,  the kind of office you have or how slick your website is.  They think that just because I do not have a conventional setup, they can get away with their unethical business practices.  I have a very simple business philosophy, if you treat me fairly, I will do business with you, else I will look elsewhere.

It is very difficult to get a good deal or negotiate prices with these companies even if you are spending a lot of money or make a lot of profits.  Few spend time understanding their customers or website visitors. Most companies outside India are far more objective, it is much more easier to deal with them.

Big companies will always protect their own interests and there is little a small business can do if they are dependent on a single source of revenue / supplier.  So I always look for new vendors for purchases, if  the new vendor is good, I can get a better price and a backup.

By the end of this month, I should get payment from at least 15 different companies for very different products and services and I hope to increase it to at least 30 by the end of the year. For an online business, it is very important to know who you can trust and who you cannot. If the other party is not interested in working with you or is not reliable, it is better to look at other options or you will regret it when it is too late.

I was seriously considering working on affiliate programs, but after reading about the cookie stuffing scam, selling space at a fixed rate seems to be the best option. The worst thing you can  do is not try, there are so many money making options I regret not having experimented with earlier.

Cookie stuffing is STEALING! Those here that are defending the practice – if you work hard to make money through affiliate programs you have undoubtedly been a victim of this kind of theft.

Let’s say you do PPC. You PAID to get that visitor to read your ad, you spent time building the landing page and you sent that PPC visitor to the merchant. It’s YOUR sale! Then the visitor leaves. Reads a forum about something totally unrelated, never clicks a link or does anything. Goes back to buy and the cookie stuffer who did NO legitimate work at all – steals your sale. You PAID for that visitor, don’t you feel cheated? You should!

I have often felt my affiliate conversions were not being tracked accurately , seems it is  widespread , as this eBay lawsuit shows . That is why I like to very sure of the kind of company I am dealing with and spend hours researching, before I sign up. If you want to make money online using white hat techniques , flat monthly advertising rates seem a better bet.

Added:  It appears that the amount stolen was approx $1 million a month , this thread  on EPN ( eBay Partners Network) has more information

Popular rock bands in India play very little of their own music.

Playing your own music is hard – there’s a risk that people wont like it.

That is the problem in India, people don’t  like to take risks.

When  I was leaving my job many of  my colleagues told me ” So,  N you are leaving to start your own business. We would all like to do the same, but cannot afford to.”

Yes, most of them were married, had families and responsibilities, so they could not take the risk of leaving a very comfortable job in one of India’s largest and most respected companies.  I had no responsibilities or liabilities whatsoever, so I could afford to take a risk, though it meant starting from scratch in an entirely different field.

The other thing I have noticed is that many people in their twenties today in India (especially in Metro cities) try very hard to imitate the lifestyle of people in foreign countries, thanks to the mainstream media in India today.  They do not realize that to make money online, you need to have the best understanding of what works online, all other things are secondary.

But the irony is that the comment in the above post shows, Americans who they try so hard to imitate,  do not have a high opinion of  these Indian copycats.