• The Wall Street Journal, Friday, September 9, 2011 12:55 PM

Despite publishers' best efforts, The Wall Street Journal reports that it's actually getting harder to profit off online advertising. The reason? Too much content! "It's a simple rule of any market," The Journal explains. "The more information that is created, the more the value is reduced. And despite attempts to woo spending with bigger, bolder and more targeted ads, services that help consumers navigate that content, namely search, remain the big money makers online."

As as result, as Web traffic explodes, Web companies are struggling to profit off ads shown next to the articles, videos and other content offered to viewers. "People tell me that content is king, but that is not true at all," says Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy and innovation officer at Vivaki, tells WSJ. "Most people make money pointing to content, not creating, curating or collecting content."

Companies like Yahoo and AOL -- which have lived (and may die) by the content-is-king mantra -- are increasingly losing ground to Facebook and Google -- both of which, "are adept at helping point the way to pertinent or interesting material."

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »