Outside the incestuous pool of “Internet Marketers”, there are actually two great examples of the “Web2.0″ sites which operated on the usual principles — and turning out to work just fine.

The formula appears to be: Captivated interested audience + valued product/service + relevant call action == high dollar value ‘purchase’ x massive conversion == high ‘profits’.

1) Penny Arcade: Child’s Play
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Through a giant blog audience, they were able to capture a common interest in helping sick kids — through gaming. Realizing that it sucks to be sick (especially when you’re a kid), they were able to galvanize an audience who are obviously devotees to gaming to all pony up cash to buy gaming stuff for kids in hospital.

The interesting thing is that 1) they directly asked for donations and 2) they were able to use Amazon to help with the project — specifically to order the games, and then ship the games.

The formula appears: Captivated interested audience + valued product/service + relevant call action == high dollar value ‘purchase’ x massive conversion == high ‘profits’.

Captivated audience: Penny arcade readers — readers who are gamers.
Valued product/ service: The charity — buying games for kids
Relevant call to action: Please give money so we can buy games for kids who are sick
And the result: $$$ result. And of course great beneficiaries of it all … the kids.

2) 37 Signals “Getting Real”:
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Similar story here. Large audience (?20k readers?) + high value product/ service + relevant call to action == $$$.

Captivated audience: Programmers / designers / web businesses
Valued product or service: Getting Real — an ebook(!) about how they do what they do … and they’re doing it successfully: basically how they created several web applications from scratch — quickly, effectively, and profitably. (?bootstrapping anyone?)
Call to action: their roll out involved letting their audience know through their blog, “buzz”and word of mouth … no affiliate marketing involved, and a limited sales page. No guarantees or any of the usual stuff involved. Interesting…

Kottke.org seems to notice it as well
1750 x $19 == almost $20k in just a few days.
Apparently 400 000 people have used their products, so this is a pretty abysmal conversion. 2 / 400 == 0.5% — but they really haven’t employed any of the standard marketing techniques.

The best part of the 37signals story is that it directly fits into the micro / DIY publishing arena that is the direct equivalent of what an “ebook” is!

he whole ebook phenomena is tarnished in broad strokes by junk info merchants … but success stories like 37signals clearly gives it legitimacy.

And when it boils down to it, its obvious that its a profitable road for everyone involved.

Sitepoint.com — appeared to notice it a long time ago. They started as a site for ‘tutorials’and the like … but just a few years ago started self publishing. Granted, its not electronic, but Voila … direct marketing + internet == profits.