Trying to make money on the Internet is akin to searching for cold fusion. Many people are looking, with few finding answers.
In Webonomics, Wired contributing writer Evan I. Schwartz offers some guideposts for those searching. His nine principles for building a business on the Web are pretty solid, although most of them are well known to anybody trying to make money on the Web (and who isn't these days?). It's hardly news that Web sites need to be kept up-to-date, or that small companies can look like big ones on the Net. The book's real value comes from Schwartz's analysis and anecdotes of what works, what doesn't, and why. All of us in the emerging field of electronic commerce are feeling our way in the dark. This book reads like a scrawled message warning about dead ends and easy passages left by explorers just ahead of us.
Schwartz doesn't pretend that his principles are all-inclusive; they're just the first ones he's stumbled across. New ideas will soon emerge, giving the book a short shelf life.
But that doesn't make this snapshot any less vivid. The Web morphs itself every couple of months. Strategies to extract money from it have to keep changing just as quickly.
##### Webonomics, by Evan I. Schwartz: US$25. Broadway Books: +1 (212) 354 6500.
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