Throughout the world, content producers want to continue to make money from their works, or make even more than they are earning already, especially with digital content, like electronic books, multimedia books, articles, audio and video. I am one of many. But why are so many people using the wrong term to describe what they want to accomplish? The noun monetization and the verb to monetize indeed exist, both in English and in Castilian, as monetización and monetizar. However, in both cases, it means to create a new currency. The most recent three cases I recall when monetization happened were (1) in 1903, when the board game Monopoly was created, together with Monopoly money… (2) in 2008, when Bitcoin was created, and… (3) in 2013, when Amazon created Amazon Coins. Those are proper examples of monetization (creation of a new currency), but have nothing to do with what content producers are trying to achieve. This tiny article explores more accurate terms to describe what we really want.
NOTE: The two lists below are not intended to be direct translations of each other. They are just four ways I recall in each language to say what we really want.
In English
- to get return on investment
- to make money
- to profit
- to make profit
In Castilian (en castellano)
- capitalizar
- ganar dinero
- lucrar
- rentabilizar
We should remember these words before stretching the meaning of the term monetize/monetization and monetitazción/monetizar unnecessarily, since they have their own, unique meaning, as the people from Monopoly, Bitcoin and Amazon know well.
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