The real estate on your desktop is more valuable than you think.

YOUR DESKTOP AS A MEDIUM
Finally, there's the third category of service providers also finding their way around in the Internet economy. No PCs for rent or for free. No money transactions. Just an Internet connection. Once again, it is an advertising-subsidized online service. Called NetZero, it is the zero-option nothing-to-lose connection. Without the free hardware, by comparison, this might not seem attractive. But for people who already own a PC, it's a suitable fit. Because NetZero is trying to replace your ISP, it assumes you're not a 'newbie', and you've got to log on using an existing connection, download the software (from netzero.com) and be willing to part with a few megabytes of your hard drive. After this, you get free unlimited access nomatter where you live in the US. Then, whenever you log on to the Net, there will be a banner ad at the bottom of your screen -the price you pay for the connection.

But the most preposterous form of the growing eyeball rental business to hit involves no investment. A company called AllAdvantage.com takes the idea of turning your desktop into a media space and turns it on its head. Instead of rewarding you for putting up with ads on your screen with hardware or a service, it pays you strictly cash. That's right real money. And they're not talking of small change. The idea is actually quite simple: pass the advertising revenue back to the target audience, rather than fatten its own bank account. To understand the way it works, you must first accept that your computer belongs to the new media economy. (Your TV set, whether you receive programming via cable, antenna or videocassette belongs to the old, because couldn't differentiate you from your neighbour). Marketers who expect your desktop to be a central interface in your home are willing to pay you for a few inches of real estate. AllAdvantage is also the marriage of new media thinking and the old-economy's biggest get-rich-quick schemes: pyramid marketing, and it's respectable cousin, multi-level marketing. The Palo Alto company must have hoped it would capture an Amway-like following, but only time will tell if the lure of big money (in the range of $50,000) will make people bite. Like Amway, you as an independent contractor --a 'media owner', no less-- are expected to not just use the product, but grow the customer base. The more you evangelize and lock in, the bigger your commission cheque.

But wait a minute, what's the product?

What's strange is that unlike GOBI or FreePC, AllAdvantage does not have one. The 'product', if you will, is advertising. You download software from their site and as in NetZero, it opens a standard banner ad on your desktop. Whenever you're on to the Internet (no free connection here: you log on through your own service provider), the company pays you as long as you keep the banner ad open. Meaning, you can close it if it's too annoying, and not pay a penalty. The income is $0.50 cents an hour. Before you scoff at that, consider that the average Web user in the US spends about 40 hours online. This translates into $20 a month without moving a muscle. OK, give and take a few eye movements.

But the company has computed that the real money you can make is by referrals. AllAdvantage will pay you another slab of $0.10 cts an hour for every person you get into the programme. That's a level-2 income bracket in the great pyramid where, should you get ten others to join, you'll make $40 a month. If these 10 people each bring in 10 others, you will make $460 bucks a month, putting you at a lofty income level in the pyramid. Now I'm no fan of pyramids and multi-level schemes, if only because it neglects one factor: not everyone down the line will have the same commitment, passion or greed or whatever you want to call it. But even so, it's hard to dismiss their ingenuity. After all neither Business Week nor CNN rewards me for putting up with the ads in-between the newsprint and airtime I consume, and that's the direction in which a lot of new media businesses will be heading. E-commerce is all about mass customization, and the ad banners that pop up on your subsidized medium will be tailored to your individual, idiosyncratic tastes. Until now, the closest the old media could get to that was to print regional issues (the Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest and Time have Asian, European and Japanese versions), and carry spot ads that were different in local TV markets. But that still treated you and your neighbour no different from your entire town, so what targeting is that? All this is about to change.

Besides computers and Internet access, this is a business model that in time will get fine tuned, and given the pace of technology, will allow marketers to transfer advertising dollars to their target audience in a quick, painless procedure. If you're an entrepreneur, it's worth turning any conventional media model on its head to see what it looks like. If you're a customer, keep your corneas wide open.