If you have a commercial website or a network of them, you probably spend a lot of time chasing up advertising on the internet. You may also use an agency or two which take 40-50pc of the income they generate.

Maybe it’s getting a bit harder out there now, with PageRank depressed and an almighty credit funk hanging in the air like a bad smell.

Here’s an alternative. Depending on the topic(s) of your site(s), try placing small display ads in the business section of your local newspaper or trade press.

Ask readers to consider internet advertising. You might remind them that it’s very competitive with comparable colour display stuff in magazines, or text lines in the small ads.

I stumbled on this field while following up our plans for a local West Country subNetwork. While assessing the potential for local ads, I saw how many national and international companies are present here in Devon. There are also lots of small businesses that trade internationally, often selling produce online, and also bags of computer and tech SMEs, some on the new technology park set up by the university.

It occurred to me that this was a treasure trove of potential advertisers for the Syntagma network, let alone a dedicated local one. As a source of text-link ads and 125s — which we haven’t picked up on yet, but intend to — it’s a veritable goldmine.

Advertisers don’t have to be based in the U.S. — a common assumption online, mainly because volume-wise it’s such an enormous market. But, for a middling sized digital network, there is literally huge potential in your local area.

I can happily pass on this piece of intelligence because there are no digital networks based in the West Country of England — that I know of.

Maybe they’ll all come jumping out of the undergrowth now.

Continuing the uncharacteristically gloomy series of posts in Syntagma over recent days, I’m impelled to mention Greg Linden’s plausible post on the “coming 2008 dotcom crash”.

He writes : “The crash will be driven by a recession and prolonged slow growth in the US. Global investment capital will flee to quality, ending the speculative dumping of cash on Web 2.0 startups.”

The VC’s will go into damage limitation mode : “Venture capital firms will seek to limit their losses by forcing many of their portfolio companies to liquidate or seek a buyout. … Startups that managed to get cash before the bubble collapses will have a cash horde [sic], but will find little opportunity to rest on it. Most startups will find their revenue models were unrealistic and will rapidly have to seek change.”

A contrarian view was taken by Irwin Stelzer on last night’s BBC Newsnight. He felt the Sovereign Wealth Funds (see this post) would ride in to the rescue like the US Cavalry — as they have done so far. His tone was a shade too optimistic for my taste, much as I admire his opinions. The image of King Canute rose unbidden to the mind’s eye.

Back to Linden, who compares the current situation with the 2000 dotcom crash : “[It] was a much smaller crash without the fuel from broader problems in the US economy, but we still had investment capital shut off for a few years, most startups shut down, and the remaining startups shift business models.”

I believe the crash is already underway. I’m sensing a number of ad networks reassessing their operations and even closing down some programs. We can’t be immune from the wider economy.

Businesses that can live on short rations may ride this out through belt-tightening measures. Anyone with debt that needs to be renewed periodically will find their position precarious.

It’s 2008 at last and the energies across the internet (especially the blogosphere) are very different from last year. It’s a bit like looking at the Earth from the barren wastes of the Moon.

That’s enough poetry for at least 12 months. Time for business.

The question on everyone’s face is : where are we now? So, where are we now at Syntagma Media?

In response to the general climate, we’ve contracted our network from 55 sites at peak, to around 30. This has been done by merging similar topics, archiving low performers and deleting the occasional dud. It leaves us with a more manageable portfolio of properties and with the task of defining a new advertising strategy for it.

We’re also anticipating the launch of our first private information site dedicated to the retail sector and aimed at retail corporations. This will become the core business in 2008 and should provide some spinoff advertising for the network.

Our print publishing program has been put on hold pending the completion of my personal writing projects, which should be wrapped up by late spring.

Energies are generally low this week and it took great effort to complete this short post.

Thank you for reading it. We’ll be back on Planet Earth soon.

It’s Boxing Day here in England, a day traditionally reserved for giving presents (Christmas boxes) to the extended family and friends. I was going to take a rest from posting on Syntagma and other sites until January 2, but something is jangling away at me : the upcoming downturn/recession/depression/crash, depending on which view you take. The nasty end of that spectrum is now a real and menacing possibility.

The optimistic view says that Sovereign Wealth Funds — vast reserves of cash held by Gulf oil sheiks and “new economy” developing countries like China — will save world stock markets from collapse. Indeed such funds are buying up wagonloads of equity in some of the biggest Western corporations, Citicorp and Merrill Lynch, for example, and great chunks of Britain’s FTSE 100 companies.

Quite how allowing our biggest companies to be owned and run by a small group of Oriental potentates will look in 10 years time is anyone’s guess. I doubt we will think it such a smart move.

The pessimistic view — which I confess I’m now leaning strongly toward, despite my normally sunny nature — comes from the banks. Never mind the stock markets, look at how the bankers are reacting on the ground.

All banks are now hoarding cash like Ebeneezer Scrooge and virtually ceasing to lend. With house price indices slithering down a slope like novice ice skaters, and inter-bank rates running at around 8 percent, this has become a total banking crisis worldwide, and that has the potential for real evil in our economies.

Japan’s decade-long woes in the 1990s were caused by crises in its overprotected banking system, as were the Far-Eastern “Tiger” economies that collapsed at around the same time.

So how are we all reacting to this worldwide financial mess, now a “perfect storm” according to another banking pundit? Are we hoarding cash like the banks, or are we spend, spend, spending in the post-Christmas sales?

The real crunch comes if we all stop spending, as the Japanese did in 1990. Our economies will then spiral out of control as the High Street suffers and all kinds of businesses lay off staff in droves. Do we protect ourselves first by reining in, or do we support the wider economy? Since there will be little money to spend, the economy will suffer whatever anyone does. It’s a no-win situation from whatever angle you view it.

In retrospect it’s now clear that Alan Greenspan left rates too low for too long and spawned the mad rush to lend to the sub-prime market (Ninja mortgages : no income, no job, no assets). But on top of that, it is also now normal to be permanently in debt and to service it by moving it continuously between lenders engaged in a bitter battle for market share and a bigger slice of the easy action. These lenders are no longer willing to cough up, even if they were in a position to do so.

In Britain, the situation is getting dire. From the UK’s Telegraph : “Tim Congdon, a banking historian at the London School of Economics, said the rot had seeped through the foundations of British lending. … ‘How on earth did the Financial Services Authority let this happen?’ he asks. Worse, changes pushed through by Gordon Brown in 1998 have caused the de facto cash and liquid assets ratio to collapse from post-war levels above 30 per cent to near zero. ‘Brown hadn’t got a clue what he was doing,’ he says.”

And European treaties, like Maastricht, will make matters worse not better, says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard : “Maastricht rules may force the Government to raise taxes or slash spending into a recession. This way lies crucifixion. … Brown has disarmed us on every front.”

Crucifixion is a powerful word, especially at this time of year. “Brown has disarmed us on every front” is a damning indictment of the UK’s new Prime Minister, more particularly because he has just signed us up to another Euro treaty.

I wish Syntagma could bring you a better box on Boxing Day, but I fear it may be much worse than even the news we’re now getting suggests.

Maybe I should have continued with my holiday. See you on January 2.