With every new venture and idea born on the digital Web, the question is always the same: Will it make money? For many in the digital content space -- particularly online video and social networking -- that still remains to be seen.

Everyone, of course, claims to have the answer. Some say it's all about branded content, others say it's about changing user behavior. YouTube today unveiled post-roll ads on some of its short-form content (as expected).

But the dollars have yet to roll in. (Stuck in traffic, perhaps.)

Part of the problem with creating a revenue stream (and, with any luck, a profit), is that users visiting social networking sites or viewing online video just aren't looking out for ads. The other part of it stems from clueless advertisers that haphazardly slap ads on and around all things digital.

According to Romi Mahajan, chief marketing officer at Ascentium, an interactive marketing and technology consultancy, there are at least three things that online advertisers are doing wrong -- the first being that not enough advertisers are doing behavioral targeting. "Figure out who I am before you serve me advertising," he says. [Ed. note: Or, see Gmail ads for how not to behaviorally target.]

"The second thing is there are too many players still that completely lose the aesthetic and the UI they could build because they jam too much display or lead-gen ads on their sites," he adds. "That makes for a very bad experience."

The third thing, he says, is advertisers need to revise their business models. "It would be much better to have fewer, higher-paying ads, for brands that get high CPMs, than the other way around, and I don't think people think about that too often. I think people who sell inventory sell it to whoever comes."

That said, Mahajan thinks that digital content will certainly be a moneymaker, but it shouldn't be assumed that all content is worth something on its own.

"I don't think you can really monetize every form factor. I think form factors have to lead to others to get deeper engagement for a customer," he says. "I think we are in an era where people monetize digital content. I just don't think it's done in a vast way yet because people don't think about the monetization of content, they think of selling ads."

Between the two online areas struggling to trade user engagement for buckets of cash, Mahajan believes social networks should have an easier time than online video at making money, because video lacks the "stickiness" and user-added value of social networking.

However, at some point, he says, customers are going to demand some kind of payback for their level of engagement... and they're going to get it. "Consumers are going to figure out they're giving away their information and not getting anything for it. They're going to demand to have these little banks of their own information they sell to the highest bidder.

"I don't think we're there yet, and I don't know what the technological fix is for that, but I think you're going to see that. It's absolutely going to happen."

— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution