Earning through traffic ... Internet Traffic ...

I have always advocated saving. My friends know this. I believe that our fate is in our hands and in saving for a rainy day. I also believe in the biblical parable of the good steward and the notion that God does not want us to be wrapped in poverty. I do not advocate materialism mind you, as I do not wish to promote attachment to worldly things. However, because of my advocacy for saving and financial literacy, I frequently stumble upon various investment and business proposals.

I have this friend who has been asking me to invest in an online business model. I have not had the time to fully understand his proposal, but according to him, it is viable and it actually works.

The online proposal is called Giblink. From what I know of it so far, it is a business that feeds off Internet traffic. Simply put, it earns through advertising. I do not know the details of the business yet, but apparently, Internet traffic can be a very profitable business.

This is how it works: let us say you are an excellent writer and that you have a blog. As you post in your blog, hundreds of people visit your site to read what you have written. Now if say an advertiser like Jack ‘n Jill (I use Philippine brands to promote Philippine Products. Ah, the little things I do) wants to put an advertisement in your website, surely that advertiser must pay you for it.

Now imagine if instead of just having hundreds, you have thousands ... nay, millions, wouldn’t your advertising space be worth so much more? Of course. Apparently this is how various websites make money. This is the reason why google bought Youtube for millions of dollars and this is the reason why we have tons of networking websites (as I call them) proliferating cyberspace today. Advertising. Internet Traffic is equal to advertising and advertising is equal to cash.

Traffic is easier to monitor as individual clicks can be measured. This together with the fact that IP addresses can be identified to make a verified count of every distinct user that views the site, and you have a system that tells you how much your website is viewed far better than the darn AGB Nielsen television rating system. No TV station fist fight here.

Now, the million dollar question is this: are there safeguards for this type of business? In other countries perhaps; in the Philippines, who knows. Do these things get taxed? Well, definitely not here.

So the next time you open your friendster, facebook, my space, yahoo, google, gmail, and msn whatever, perhaps you might want to try to look and notice the advertising. Companies are paying millions of dollars just to make you take a glance ... or is that actually an enticing reason not to do so.

- Elgene L. C. Feliciano