It's pretty diagnostic when such a huge and savvy advertiser steers clear, but there's another aspect to the story. P&G played a key role in getting two new mediums -- radio and television -- off the ground by underwriting content. Does the name soap opera ring a bell?

    A visit to the favorite sites page at www.pg.com shows that at least in a small way, P&G is at it again. The parenting website is in part a P&G production, but for reasons beyond me, I never saw an ad for a P&G product on it.

    It seems to me that Cincinnati's biggest company could afford to launch any number of quality content sites -- if nothing else as living, breathing research laboratories on the effectiveness of web advertising. Their current list of favorite sites is a pretty impressive piece of work (for reasons too numerous to mention here) but I respectfully suggest they are missing a tremendous opportunity.

    With the web being so young, it's not out of the question to believe you could launch and maintain a Top 40 website for less than the cost of a single episode of ER (or maybe an entire year of "The Edge of Night").

    Which brings up a simple enough question.

    What kind of site would you launch?

    ***

    A lot of people don't know there's a Nielsen ratings (of sorts) for the web, mediametrix.com, which is too bad because their numbers reveal a great deal on who surfs where for what.

    The top sites are dominated first by search engines and what the industry calls portals -- ways to gain entrance into areas of interest. The second largest category is web versions of successful cable TV enterprises, CNN, ESPN and The Weather Channel and other news and information enterprises. I should mention MSNBC at this point, but it strikes me as a very C- operation hidden under A+ glitz.

    The web-first operations leading in traffic include electronic greeting cards and on-line auctions, and only a handful of direct retailers show up in the Top 50. (Sony, at No. 34, isn't there so much for selling product via the web as much as for its online version of Jeopardy.)

    Conspicuously absent from the top of the heap are the web quality content for web quality content sites, ie Slate or Salon. The e-zine world clearly still awaits the arrival of its LIFE, People or Sports Illustrated, which should be a big clue for somebody.

    Now the smart P&G analysts surveying this data would likely find the search engine industry too crowded, and that they would be aware of the increasing competitiveness of on-line auctions. I suspect they would be intrigued by the rocket-like rise of www.miningco.com, and its inspired step in moving from the search to the search results.

    USA Today reports that Ford Motor company will sink $2.5 million into the Digital Entertainment Network, a site dedicated to six-minute downloadable TV shows geared toward the teenage market. Considering the rise of sites such as Broadcast.com, mp3.com and AT&T's a2b music site, a general interest site seeking to crack the Top 40 better incorporate music in its content mix

    Launching a general interest site on the lines of the mining company would not be difficult or terribly expensive, and it would provide valuable data evaluation potential for a company such as P&G. I can immediately think of a whole bunch of advice and tips features, which, coincidentally enough, would likely include P&G products in the answers. I can see a wide array of surveys/giveaways resulting in valuable market data and valuable word of mouth.

    And hell, sense I'm dreaming, there's one other way I'd route traffic to this brand new Top 40 site.

    Cold hard cash.

    ***

    Money giveaways may not be as farfetched as they first appear. Radio stations have used this most blatant of all gimmicks routinely for years. If a cynical analyst believes such a step is inevitable on the web, then it logically follows that there is value in doing it first.

   The dirty little secret in web profitability is not if you build it, they will come, but rather, if you build it, will they come back? The statistics are clear; all the most-hit sites either ruthlessly churn and update their content, or offer a valuable service. It would be relatively cheap and easy for a P&G general interest site to incorporate the electronic cards service now dominated by Blue Mountain Arts. Think of a card such as "Sorry about your Pepto moment," and consider the beauty of expressing a sentiment and plugging a product at the same time.

    And since this is the web, everything can be packaged. I'd argue that P&G products could be packaged in a way for direct retail sale over the web -- the kid going off to college pack, the complete medicine cabinet pack. At some point, this site would have to justify its investment, and bringing in some revenue would help move the argument away from the web as an effective advertising medium, which is where this whole ramble began.

    As a passionate believer in the web, I want to see websites that compete with sitcoms -- sites that can provide a half hour of pleasurable reading, browsing and viewing. So the soap operas provide a clue -- if mainstream media companies aren't producing quality web content, then perhaps their advertisers should.

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