Hi Guys ...the following is my idea: Well its a website that vets excellent or high quality websites and promotes TQM on the internet, regarding policies, privacy, ease of use etc.... The revenue model would be comprised of advertising revenue from the promoted excellent companies and perhaps a user subscription.... Getting the user to trust us is one of the difficulties but there is a possible answer in aligning ourselves with a trusted brand or getting some kind of government approval or ISO 9000 status...this would not be in the form of regulation, only perhaps a govt or company endorsing our established best practices,,,,.....Legally speaking we could leave ourselves open to suits by promoting sites that then let a customer down, so we would need to have some kind of clause to escape such actions...We would not be reviewers of websites, we would be a service to consumers and businesses alike that gives a selection of high quality and highly maintained websites....We would have to develop strong and tight best practices and some form of site evaluation..... It would promote increased usage of the internet, considering that most people don't use the internet out of lack of education and lack of trust.... Think about it.... Claire

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2000

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Thoughts & Questions

Claire, Yes the challenge of vetting/sorting good content from trash is a challenge. You must excuse my preconception in viewing ideas as I start from the truism that "there is no such thing as free". We've studied eight atomic e-business models of which the "infomediary" is one. Most of them have been compromised by balancing advertising/top listing with truly useful/independent content. I'm not convinced of advertising revenue on the net these days. I know when I looked at it early this year the rate was $30 per 1,000 hits. I'm sure that has dropped with hits now obsolete and revenue only from sales (ie commission)We looked at www.iselect.com.au which helps people through the confusing process of selecting their appropriate level of health insurance. It derives trailing commisions when people sign up. It is compromised by only offering those funds that it has a "deal" with, so even though Price Waterhouse vet it's independence it is probably not.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2000