"From .com to .profit" is a thought-provoking book for entrepreneurs who want to build major, Internet-based businesses or who want to understand more about the business models of larger, Internet-focused companies.

The authors discuss six "value imperatives," which they feel successful Internet companies must have in their business models. These imperatives are:

1) "Perfect Your Logistics"

2) "Cultivate Your long-term relationships"

3) "Harmonize your channels [of distribution] on behalf of the customer"

4) "Build A Power Brand"

5) "Transform Your Capital And Cost Structures"

6) "Become a value-adding intermediary"

The book devotes a chapter to each topic. One of my favorite chapters was "Perfect Your Logistics," where Earle and Keen give many examples of how companies have used the Internet to save money and significantly reduce their operating costs. The Internet allows companies to be more efficient.

Earle and Keen say that improvements in logistics will be a huge advantage of the Internet. While consumer-based Internet companies have captured the most public awareness, the biggest benefit of the Internet to businesses will be greatly increased efficiency in doing mundane things, such as ordering paper clips. Business-to-business transactions will probably create more savings and opportunities than business-to-consumer transactions.

"From .com to .profit" does an excellent job discussing business-to-business hubs and portals (web sites where businesses can come to broker supplies and services).

The book's discussions of branding, value-added intermediation, partnerships, and relationship building are also excellent.

I took off a star for some silly statements about capital structure. Earle and Keen write that the Internet has created a "capital revolution," and if a company can show a "Price/Vision" premium, investors will continue to bid up the price on the company's Internet stock. Wanna bet? The Internet has not created a "capital revolution." It has created an investment mania.

Earle and Keen go on to glibly write, "There is no correlation over the longer term between market value and any standard accounting measure of profitability. ..." Ah, can we have some evidence, please? This seems an incredibly silly remark to make without supporting evidence! Unprofitable companies over the long-term tend to disappear from the stock market. Some apparel companies do manage to limp along for decades without ever being profitable. But, such companies are hardly a good investment.

The authors observe that once you have highly-valued stock, it can be used as currency to acquire intellectual capital and other assets of real worth. This is true. And, as Earle and Keen point out, not having highly-valued shares to trade for intellectual capital is a disadvantage of privately-held companies. But, let's not legitimize funny money as a way to build a business!

Overall, "From .com to .profit" offers a lot of great insight into business models and into what separates customer-focused, successful business operations from less successful operations, making it worth a read.

Peter Hupalo, author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur"

Dot-profit provides a good review of the economics and fundamentals of electronic commmerce. This is particularly needed given the state of the market. While the book is good for understanding the sources of value and benefit found in eCommerce.

The book while strong on rational does not provide enough detail to implement. I like Peter's books so I read his other books on eCommerce. I found the eProcess Edge out at about the same time as a good refernece for building what it takes to move from dot-com to dot-profit. Reading both has given me the high level business strategy and the business operations requirements needed to act on the advice.

This solidly researched and written guide shows you how to move into the next phase of e-business operations: actually making them profitable. The authors call this era .profit (dot profit), and aside from that little gimmick, the book is refreshingly free of space-filling babble. Instead, it concentrates on the elements needed to make a profit on the Internet, and gives plenty of examples from cyberspace so you can learn from those who are already in .profit world. We from getAbstract recommend this book to anyone charged with developing business strategy.