All these sites are driven by ad revenue. nothing productive. btw, facebook is way over-rated. It's like CROX. I will mortgage and short the POS once it goes public. A wonderful short sell once the lock-up period expires. However, there is money to be made in the new online economy. The future trend is "total disintermediation" of information and ideas. ie, those with the ideas and the information will DOMINATE! We see the beginning with guys like Sykes and New Media like the HuffPost. As the cost of bringing to market new ideas approaches ZERO, the true gainers will be those who actually generate the ideas. Some leading "Youtube partners" are generating high 6 figures posting content using a $300 camera and $50 editing software.
Totally agree. Another Chinese site that is doing an excellent job is FaceKoo. There is an interview with the CEO on yahoo finance that is worth the time it takes to listen to it.
I really wish that people could see sarcasm. To me it seems pretty obvious if you read my posts that I'm totally fucking around and I think that the guys who are running the Web 2.0 sites are a bunch of idiots. I was making fun of stock turd, who keeps posting threads all over the place that the economy is in great shape because people are using web 2.0 sites that don't cost them a penny. I'm not sure how, if you read the posts, you could not see that I'm being a total smart ass, especially if you then go and read the article that I posted that shows what a truly miserable job Digg is doing, even though that have a ton of traffic. In terms of have I made money online the short answer is yes. Since 1999 when I made my first profit online I have made more money with my online business then most people will make in their entire life. I've had my trading sites, and I then I also still currently have a site on Cluster Headache Treatments, Picking up woman, increasing your metabolism, time management tactics and just launched a raw foods site. I'm also looking at launching a site for hunters and fishermen. I've started projects that did not become profitable, and I turn them all off. There is no reason not to make money on the Internet if you have half a brain in your head.
What Gary is doing is really amazing, and a great example of how a person can get on the net and use web 2.0 to make a very nice living.
Here is my take on making money online, web 2.0, 1.0, 7.9 I don't care. It might not be worth anything, I don't know. I do think that I know a few things about making money online. By far my most successful online venture was TFMS which made around 250K profit per year for me until Toni and I divorced. I've had and have a number of other sites, all making between $2000 and $30,000 per year. Not a fortune by any means, but I don't spend more then an hour or so a week on any one of of them except near startup. I think that the opportunity to make money on the web is only limited by the creativity of the entrepreneur who uses it. The thing is that the very first question which must be addressed is "How do I make money from this". Unfortunatly thats not the culture in the Valley, they just make some cool gadgets, get "funding" and try to strike it rich. That's not how the real world works, but in the real world you can make money on the web. I think that anyone, and I mean ANYONE, could have an info product business up with in a week. If your willing to invest the time to learn how to drive good traffic to your site and test offers you should be making a little money with in a few months. Once your making a little you scale it until that niche cant support the scale anymore. There are any number of people making a ton of money with info products. Gary Vaynerchuk as mentioned by chris here, also guys like Frank Kern, who sells everything from how to train your dog to how to attract humming birds to your back yard to "internet marketing", he is making around $20million per year. David DeAngelo/Eben Pagen (of Double Your Dating fame) has built up a business that does nearly $30 million per year. He's done this from scratch in a period of five years. Obviously these are not billion dollar figures, but these are figures that are very nice for a single individual to be making. These guys are obviously not the rule in terms of what they are making, but again I don't think I have any great talent and I continue to make money selling products online too. This type of business will always be on the net, and I have not seen a slow down in mine. Does this mean there is no slowdown? I'd be a retard to say that, but I do think that there is potential on the net. There is great potential in Web 2.0, but the companies are being run by a bunch of idiots that come from a wasteful culture in Silicon Valley. I suspect this will change though in time. Like I said too I dont have any kind of special skill or jenious (with a capital J!) , I'm just willing to put in some effort and figure out "How can I make money with this". If the guys in SF did the same thing they would make a ton of money, but thats just not what they do there yet, so they continue to waste investors capital...but as has been said that is clearly starting to come to an end.
Here is another example of what a person can do if they know how to monitize their traffic. I know a guy who has an online poker site, he offers ebooks, coaching and training on how to make money playing poker. I'm not sure how much traffic his site gets, not a ton but it is all targeted. He has an email list of 900 people, NINE HUNDRED, and he makes over half a million a year from his site. Again the fact that a site like Digg can bring in all the traffic that they do bring in and the Jenious (with a capital J!) cant figure out how to montize it is almost criminal.
While I don't have any experience in web business, it's not about charging people, it's about advertising! Do people run away from television even if they're bothered with one third of the time by ads? Do they run away because their entertainment is being diluted by corporate sponsors? No. All of the television industry is advertising, without it the way it is today would die. All you need to do is to steal those eyeballs watching television and put them on your website, then using tasteful advertising the consumer accepts it just as much as they accept ads in every other place in their lives. It's true you need talented web designers to make the website, and such planning has to be there since day 1 before the site is ever popular because it's hard to change the layout drastically midway. This isn't 2001 anymore, those who still don't get what their business model is have some problems. Thanks for that clip Brandon, the video I listened to with the co-founder was pretty good for the short duration. I did notice the same thing that kids have trouble differencing between the real world and fantasy, they really get into the fantasy worlds. Then you can probably sell them fantasy things that they value as much as real things. The behavior of kids that are 15, 10, even younger the days is very interesting. I wasn't born on Facebook and with a cellphone in my hand, but they are. All this internet business success stories make me jealous, oh well I decided not to be a computer nut (as I thought the world was saturated enough with them as it is) and to be a finance nut instead, hope it pays off even better.
This sounds like a teaser for an infomercial on how to get rich quick.I dont mean to be cynical or sarcastic but... I know of many people who failed with online business.Getting search engine optimization is hard and then every other wannabe has a had a brainstorm and is selling your product also. Internet business is canabalism.IE music,movies etc... Personally i would like to help somebody get their online jewelry biz going but have no idea on getting traffic/eyeballs there.
I did not mean for it to sound like an infomercial at all, but I went back and read it and can see that in it. To be clear most business will fail, I think the statistic for business is about the same as it is for traders, around 90%. That still does not, at least to me, change the thought that an online business is a good way to make money. I disagree with your search engine results being the most important thing. I have nothing against good SEO, I'd love to have good search engine results, but I've never had them. Getting traffic is a bitch. It's by far my weakest point, but I can usually make up for it with Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Pay Search (I don't use Google very often and never for PPC, I've always gotten much better ROI's out of Yahoo and MSN anyway...although if I got HUGE then I'd have to go to Google coz they are the only place that can scale beyond a certain point). I think it's just about being creative though. Here is an example. Most people work on their SEO, on Google Adsense and on Joint Venture/Affiliates to build the business. That's a valid path. I always test every assumption that I have. That's how I found out that for me Yahoo and MSN are better sources of traffic then Google, even though most people think that Google is the only way. The assumption is also made that PPC is the "only" way to go, I have worked really hard to create banner adds that pull, and I have found that I get double the ROI using CPM, others who actually have gone ahead and tested have gotten similar results. Most will never test it though. You also have to think outside the box. Example: I have a dating site, pick up artist stuff. Geek gets the girl. (I should read the course, maybe I'd have a girlfriend). Anyway, so everyone else does a few things. First of all they advertise pretty much with 100% related locations using Google (because that's what Google allows for). Well I said hmm..who else buys this stuff? What is my demographic? Geeks! So I started running my banner on sites geared towards gamers. Who other then poor traders has a harder time getting a girl then a guy who spends 11 hours a day playing Call of Duty or World of Warcraft. Once I had those running I could see right away that it was going to be successful, I had picked the right demographic, and so then I started to TEST my banners and message. You also have to test stuff on your site. Anyone that would try to say it's no work to make a site work is lying too you, just like anyone who would say the same thing about trading. That all being said though I do think that a person has a better chance of making 100K on the net then as a trader. In terms of the online Jewelry business, I really have no idea about the retail business. The only thing I have been involved in is info products, which has been a good business for me. I've been expanding it pretty actively the last several months since I've been feeling better and having a lot of fun doing it. I've got a friend who has an organic coffee company (bricks and mortar) since 1970 that is pretty successful. He is eager to go online with it, so I am in the process of getting those plans together etc..but I really have no idea yet how to build that business. It's going to be a challenge, but one I'm really looking forward too because I do think that the right online retail business can make a ton of money. I saw a lady who has a scrapbooking site and is making around $3million a year on it. I read of another guy who, when the housing boom was booming, had a site that specialized in the cool little toys of an "outdoor kitchen". He was bringing in about $1 1/4 million profit and was smart enough to sell the site three years ago for $6million. The new owner just closed it. That's a pretty spectacular failure as far as I can tell and does show that its not gauranteed, but like I said if your willing to think for yourself, hustle always learn it's not the most difficult thing in the world. Brandon
My apologies, I blindly and unjustly started lecturing you. I love to employ sarcasm myself often which makes my attack on you even more embarrassing.