The growth of Coke's mind share has preceded and paralleled the growth of Coke's sales, and is the reason Coke's brand name is its single most valuable possession. In today's marketplace, it is the Internet companies that are best positioned to grow customer value. Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, and thousands of others are all primarily interested in attracting more and more regular users and securing their loyalty. For these companies, the infrastructure required to produce their products is remarkably cheap, and the basis for their growth and their profits is mind share. The primary challenge for the Internet companies is to harness the value their customers receive and, in turn, generate cash profits.
Some websites make money selling ads like a television or radio station.
Others sell real products like Amazon's books or eBay's auction services. Some charge a subscription service for their information. Some give the information away to attract more eyeballs for banner ads. If necessary, Internet companies will invest every dime they have and completely sacrifice current profitability to grow as fast as possible before the competition steals all those eyeballs. But someday, these Internet companies will have to turn eyeballs into dollars.