The business plan calls for first creating volume, then charging for these ads. Parent World Co. owns the local cable-television company, which provides Internet service. A separate, profitable Geeks on Wheels business answers computer users' prayers. Geeks now operates from multiple offices and offers a toll-free, nationwide phone line. Geeks represented a natural business extension as well as a great pool of skills to support the Web site.
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These attract strong interest from KU alumni in-state and beyond, and provide excellent opportunities for ads. Johnson says the company plans to establish the value of site content, assuming ads and profitability will follow. Staffers also examine other revenue opportunities, such as charging a fee for access to newspaper archives and charging Realtors for enhancements to the content of their Multiple Listing Service. Although it did all its technical programming in-house, Johnson says that better integration of Web tasks into company operations in the beginning could have avoided what turned out to be duplication of effort. Plans to generate revenue by creating Web sites for other businesses turned out to be unrealistic because of the amount of client education and time required.