It's bad, yes. But it's not over. With five years of Web road beneath us and the silly, overpriced TV ad campaigns and dubious ideas behind us, we've learned that branding and buzz are very different things. Now, some paths to profitability are emerging. BusinessWeek has pinpointed four business models that not only work, but work well.
Consumers love buying on the Internet.
Three years from now, you will have three or four dominant companies in Internet consumer e-commerce. This is the currency of the Net. Some companies, notably eBay, have figured out how to cash in by being information brokers with no need for costly warehouses or distribution systems. It rakes in the dough by charging employers to post jobs or search its database of 8.9 million resumes. It's just that they can't be strictly virtual.