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WHEN the American arm of Hyundai, a South Korean carmaker, said last week that it was worried about the economy and may cancel its plans to advertise in the Super Bowl, American football's grand finale, on February 3rd, the advertising and media industries shuddered. Marketing spending is one of the first things companies decide to cut when faced with slowing sales. Suddenly a recession in ad-spending seemed imminent. In the event, Hyundai decided to stay in, but buyers and sellers of ad-space know that it is only a matter of time before someone somewhere pulls out for real.

Yet, even as stockmarkets tumble and economies falter, some ad-men expect the knife to cut most deeply in 2009 rather than in 2008. Maurice Lévy, chief executive of Publicis Groupe, a French advertising firm, reckons that despite the chance of a recession in America, 2008 will be a good year for sellers of ad-space. Three big-ticket events—America's presidential election, the Olympics in Beijing and the European football championship—could add as much as 1% of additional growth to advertising expenditure, he says, which could partially offset economic weakness.

Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, another big advertising group, acknowledges that people are anxious. But his clients are not cutting their ad budgets yet and he expects 2008 to be a reasonable year. By contrast 2009 does not have big “quadrennial” political or sporting events, and so could be painful. A new American president will dole out any unpleasant economic medicine immediately, ahead of the mid-term elections, says Sir Martin. That would hit 2009 too.

It is just possible that advertising budgets may prove more resilient than in the past. That is because the internet has brought greater accountability to advertising. Marketing chiefs can now prove that a click on an online ad produces a sale. Firms are trying to impose the same discipline on television and other media spending.

Both media and most online businesses are based on "software economics", where the cost of creating something of value is relatively high but the marginal cost of distributing it to each consumer is very low.

So you can look at the web as the ultimate extension of the media business model to a wide range of other industries. 

But when people think of the "media business model", they usually just think of advertising. That's a big part of it, to be sure, but as those of us in the media business know, it goes far beyond that. 

Here's a list all the revenue models you can find in the media industry, all based around a core of free or almost-free content:

• CPM ads ("cost per thousand views"; banner ads online and regular ads in print, TV and radio)
• CPC ads ("cost per click"; think Google ads)
• CPT ads ("cost per transaction"; you pay only if the customer brought to you from a media sites becomes a paying customer. Here's an example.)
• Lead generation (you pay for qualified names of potential customers)
• Subscription revenues
• Affiliate revenues (think: Amazon Associates)
• Rental of subscriber lists
• Sale of information (selling data about users--aggregate/statistical or individual--to third parties)
• Licensing of brand (people pay to use a media brand as implied endorsement)
• Licensing of content (syndication)
• Getting the users to create something of value for free and applying any of the above to monetize it. (Like Digg or our own Reddit)
• Upgraded service/content (ed: aka "freemium")
• Alternate output (pdf; print/print-on-demand; customized Shared Book style; etc.)
• Custom services/feeds
• Live events
• "Souvenirs"/"Merchandise"
• Co-branded spinoff
• Cost Per Install (popular with top Facebook apps who can help others get installs)
• E-commerce (selling stuff directly on your website)
• Sponsorships (ads of some sort that are sold based on time, not on the number of impressions)
• Listings (paying a time based amount to list something like a job or real estate on your website)
• Paid Inclusion (a form of CPC advertising where an advertiser pays to be included in a search result)
• Streaming Audio Advertising (like radio advertising delivered in the audio stream after a certain amount of audio content has been delivered)
• Streaming Video Advertising (like streaming audio but in video)
• API Fees (charging third parties to access your API)

Finally, theres this example, which speaks to how much more diverse the media business model is than people think:

"My main business is a site that sells classified advertisements. I can make money from any of 4 sources:

• - The people placing the advertisements, or
• - The people paying to see the advertisements (in my niche market, this is possible, although in most advertising markets it isn't), or
• - Commission from sales for related products, or
• - Direct sales of related products"

What other revenue models am I missing? Additions and other suggestion in the comments, please, and I'll update this list accordingly.

Disruptive young people who are medicated with Ritalin other amphetamines routinely report that these drugs make them "care less" about their boredom, resentments and other negative emotions, thus making them more compliant and manageable. And so-called atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal and Zyprexa -- powerful tranquilizing drugs -- are increasingly prescribed to disruptive teenagers, even though in most cases they are not displaying any psychotic symptoms.

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Throughout the history of advertising and marketing, communicating with consumers has been a one-way street. Marketers produced and disseminated messages and customers consumed them whether they liked them or not. Today, every person sees thousands of advertisements a day—and totally ignores the vast majority of them. Yet, companies still spend billions of dollars each year yelling at customers who don't want to hear it.

I've just read this fantastic book, Join the Conversation  -  it questions and answers how marketers can adapt to the brave new world of the Internet, social media and networking, consumer-generated content, blogs, and podcasts by joining the rich, deep, and meaningful customer conversations already in progress.

Consumers today are active participants in the advertising process, not silent targets and sitting ducks for one-way communication. Forget about the medium being the message; today, consumers are both the medium and the message. The future is bright for organizations that can join the ongoing dialog and leverage their customer relationships to build win-win situations for businesses, brands, and individuals. Through the power of community, dialog, and partnership, marketers finally have the power to talk with consumers rather than at them.

Traditional marketing is a red flag smart consumers can see from a mile away; an outdated idea lurching toward them with the same predictable exhortations and tired come-ons. They've had enough, and it's time to change the dynamic. When marketing is a conversation, marketers can get to know their consumers as individuals, not as silent members of a faceless demographic subsection. Join the Conversation uses real-world brands and companies, real case studies, and real conversations to reveal how to talk to customers—and how to get them talking about you.

It's time for marketing and marketers to become more meaningful and authentic, or they will both become obsolete.