The Future of Alternative Web Media
By Royce Carlson

Alternative commercial web media has not proven immune to the dot com shake out. Several great and popular sites have either shut down this year or are in financial trouble.

The first one that I was sorry to see go by the wayside was ConsciousMedia. They were an online alternative bookstore with over 80,000 titles in stock. They shut down in February, I think. They are still looking for additional funding so, if they find it, ConsciousMedia may be resurrected. I hope so.

On June 8, 2001 two alternative web magazines, Feed and Suck, went off line due to lack of sufficient revenue. I read an article last week about how even Salon.com, one of the largest independent web media sites, is in financial straits and, as a last ditch effort, is going to a subscriber-based system where users will have to pay for content.

It’s the same story with Avatar Search, an occult search engine that began in the so-called early days of the web and, the last time I checked, was getting over a million visitors a month. They are trying a subscriber-based service, too. This is after trying several other ways to generate enough revenue to keep their web server online. I hear that The Door, an online religious humor and satire site, is also close to shutting down.

Many see the commercialization of the Web as the road to ruin, but the picture is more complex than that. The idea of providing free content to viewers is a noble one but it costs money to keep servers going and to pay staff to create content. The approach that has been the undoing of many a web company has been a dependence on advertising revenue to keep servers going and their content free for users to enjoy. This hasn’t worked out so well lately. My view is that web companies overestimated the amount of advertising money available and potential advertisers have underestimated the potential of Web advertising.

It’s a shame that the money thing is so hard to work out. Even though the tech economy has been in the toilet for over a year now, the Web just keeps on growing. For example, during the first five months of this year, five months that have turned out to be horrible for many web companies, Zenzibar’s traffic grew from 30,000 visitors to over 50,000. Obviously the problem is not that people aren’t visiting web sites. The Web and Web traffic are continuing to grow at a rapid pace.

On July 1^st Zenzibar Alternative Culture will be two years old. Birthdays are often times for evaluation, so we have been seriously looking at Zenzibar and its potential. It currently has no paid staff and very low overhead. It also has zero debt. How is this so? Zenzibar is just three guys who volunteer between 5 and 20 hours a week to keep it going. It would be nice if we could do more but we all have to work other jobs to pay our personal living expenses. It would be great if Zenzibar could generate enough money to support even one of us at a modest level.

I love running Zenzibar. It is a passion for me. I also know that it will eventually demand more and more time from me and that I may eventually burn out on doing it for free while working full-time somewhere else. This means that we have to come up with a way to generate more revenue. We have been getting just enough advertising revenue to cover expenses but not to pay anyone.

How can Zenzibar stay free for users and support the people that run it? That’s the challenge. I am open to suggestions from our visitors. Zenzibar will stay online for a long time. It costs very little for it to survive, but I want it to do more than survive. I want it to grow and become an ever more useful resource to those who are tired of the crap delivered by mainstream media.

Two weeks ago we started an affiliate program with Powells Books. If visitors to Zenzibar buy books from Powells by clicking there from Zenzibar, we get a small commission. I have no idea if this kind of thing works, but we are giving it a try.

We plan on testing an alternative marketplace at Zenzibar by this Fall. The ZenBazaar will contain classified ads for alternative products and services as well as some Zenzibar-related items like logo T-shirts.

Maybe we could try a volunteer subscription thing. It would be like a donation, I guess, but it would be totally up to the users of Zenzibar if they want to pay something and how much.

Alternative web media needs your support. Not just Zenzibar but all independent media are important. Otherwise the mega-media will be successful in their bid to completely control what we see and hear. Send us your ideas on how we can keep Zenzibar alive and growing.

Thanks,

Royce Carlson, First Wizard Deluxe at Zenzibar Alternative Culture