The Internet is slowly being judged as a poor medium for business. This is a bad idea, and it's just plain wrong.

The future of the internet lies with business. Like television, the 'net needs time to mature as a medium. Television did it fast. Radio did it fast too, but not as fast. Print took a long time. The 'net is one of the fastest inventions ever, and it will be in its mature state very quickly. The intrusive ads and spam that mar the finish of the Internet now will be polished away.

In the Internet, the tradition methods of advertising, which have applied for thousands of years, are obsolete. It's not enough to merely present information. The information needs to be interesting and interactive. The current model of paying the web site for each click of a banner is flawed and costs everyone money, not to mention annoying users because the ads are becoming louder and more intrusive in an attempt to garner more hits. I know for a fact that many people are influenced by Web ads without ever visiting the pages those ads link.

Now the Net economy is crashing. Quickly. It got too big too fast, which isn't entirely bad. Part of the problem is that traditional techniques are being applied to a new medium, and they just don't work. Television, radio, and print aren't interactive- yes, you turn on the TV or open the book, but the information is presented, whereas savvy Internet users demand ads be entertaining, informative, and fun, not huge Madison Avenue banners that scream in loud, flashing colors, hawking their wares to someone looking at a completely unrelated web site. The traditional model of advertising no longer applies, and a new one will have to be developed. This will rely on some new technology that's just on the horizon now, just as television commercials needed video recording to be invented so they wouldn't need to be broadcast live. Companies that can't adjust to the new model will be cast aside- as they should be. The Internet is quintessentially American in many respects, and this is one of them. It is the new bastion of capitalism.