Customer value

March 08, 2007

What's the value of a customer who doesn't pay you anything? If you're running a hot dog stand, the answer is probably "zero." But if you're running a two-sided market - a market, like eBay or Monster.com or AdWords or YouTube or Digg or even Second Life, that needs to attract both buyers and sellers (or content generators and content consumers) - the answer may be "a lot." EBay, for instance, earns most of its money from its sellers, who pay the company a fee whenever they sell something through the auction site. The buyers don't have to pay when they make their purchases. But while eBay receives no direct revenue from the buyers, the buyers nevertheless represent a crucial set of customers for the company - without buyers, there'd be no sellers and hence no business.

Nicholas G. Carr

You can call it also Page Rank, or Search engine placement or in any other way.
At the end your website or blog is worth for the number of readers or users.
Just like TV.
Audience makes the price.
And I say the price, because what's worth today is JUST the price, not the VALUE.