Once upon a time, not very long ago at all, there was a magazine on the web run by Volvo enthusiasts for Volvo enthusiasts. It was called Virtual Volvos, and it was a nice job -- professional layout, well-written articles, etc. Links to it were found on just about all other Volvo sites.

I don't know who produced this magazine or how long they'd been at it, but I was saddened when I "surfed" out to Virtual Volvos the other day, and found that all that was left of it was a "Farewell" page with the explanation that it was shutting down due in part to the complete lack of support from "shortsighted" commercial companies that did not understand "the potential of the the web." While the demise of the magazine came as no surprise (it had last been updated nine or ten months ago, and seemed to be an abandoned project), it pointed out the extreme difficulty involved in making such an enterprise financially profitable.

This magazine, Volvo Classics Interactive, is based on the concept of the type of newsletters put out by Volvo clubs. Those newsletters can generate considerable revenues for their clubs: calculate some thousands of members paying $25 annually for six issues, add quite a few more thousands of dollars for display advertising, and you'll see that quite a profit is made over any conceivable printing and mailing costs. This is great -- the money is spent on club activities, and, if some is left over for the people doing all the work of producing the newsletter, that is only fair. It is therefore easy to think that an E-zine on the web could run in a similar manner. Why not?

The very things that make the Internet attractive work against this: 1)Access is generally free -- would you pay $25 to visit these web pages for a year, bearing in mind that this is not a club and has no events at all? Not many would. 2)Anyone can publish on the web -- if I were to try to charge for access, there are a fifty free sites out there covering much the same subject matter. How could I compete with that? 3)Geography doesn't matter on the web -- and this makes conventional advertising very difficult.

Consider one club magazine I enjoy very much: the Volvo Sports America Western States Magazine. The great bulk of its subscribers are located in California, Oregon and Washington states, and I'd guess that at least 40% are in southern California. It may therefore make sense for a Volvo dealer in Los Angeles to pay to advertise -- he can be sure that his ad is reaching a predictable number of people within range of his dealership, and he may tie this in with sponsorship of local club events, "clinics" held at the dealership, etc. A mail-order company in Pennsylvania might also want to advertise, assuming their product line specifically targets people who are fanatic enough about old Volvos that they'll pay money to join clubs and receive newsletters on the subject.

Suppose I were to approach these companies. I could say "Look! My E-zine gets 5000 'hits' in two months (well, it might do that next time, anyway), I don't know how many people that is (somewhere between 5000 visiting once and 5 visiting 1000 times, I suppose), they pay nothing to look at this (so I don't know if they are 'serious' about the subject), and they are scattered all over the world. Give me $200 and I'll put up a full-page ad for your company that no one at all will see unless they deliberately click to it!"

I think you can understand how being able to say "your ad will be seen worldwide" may actually be a liability.

Therefore, it is unlikely that this magazine will ever attempt to make money in its own right. With luck, the experience I gain from this project will eventually enable me to charge for developing and maintaining other websites. Any Volvo dealerships interested?

Meanwhile, I'm having fun and I get to hear from Volvo fans all over the world. That will suffice for now.