redzone - 2:32 pm on Nov 2, 2000 (gmt 0)

Many of us touted over at SEF, back as far as two years ago, that the web would one day become a "pay for placement" world... :)

We knew we were in the middle stages of the modern day "gold rush". Goto was just launched, and everybody and their brother was beating them down verbally, about how the pay-per-bid CPC model would never go over, bla, bla, bla...
Well Goto got a huge round of financing in May, 1998, and have never looked back. Now, they have bid listings on the majority of the heavy hitters portals.. :)

I'm not saying that Inktomi's implementation is a good one. Far from it, they've chosen a terrible partner to be the source for their pay for submission service.

But, the "brick and mortar" world is one of the "have's and have not's".. How long did everyone expect "cyberworld" to be a friendly haven for free information... We're just lucky that the corporate steamrollers didn't take the web seriously, for as long as they did.....

My suggestion is the same as it always has been. Play where you can, and stay out of the areas where it takes "deep pockets" to run with the big dogs.... :)

The big dogs may not be throwing money at the web, like they did last year, but they still got more money than sense, at times.....