How to Make It Work

Each day, thousands of people are starting to investigate the opportunity of… dare I say… “making money online.”  Ugh.  I hate saying that phrase; sounds like it belongs in one of those late night infomercials.

If you are one of these people, listen up:  as a person who has dabbled in and out of internet marketing since 1997, let me tell you what you’re about to get into.

But first, a little background:

The internet is a massive array of computers all over the world connected by cables.  There are two basic kinds, servers, which store the websites (files)  found on the internet; and PCs, which “read” the websites.  Browsers, like Internet Explorer and Firefox, are software applications pre-installed on most PCs that translate a website page’s code into a visual, usable display consisting of text, graphics, multimedia, and links.   You type in a website’s address into your browser, and presto– you’re “on the internet.”

Think deeper, and it becomes apparent that anyone in the WORLD who has an internet connection can see what you see online (with the exception of those whose governments restrict access).   So, if a person in China and a person in Mobile, Alabama types in www.youtube.com, they will see the same page.

Way back in the mid 1990s when the internet was getting off the ground, entrepreneurial minds smelled something big.  As they dabbled on the internet, they saw the future and “CHA-CHING!”  –the new Gold Rush was on.  These opportunistic people immediately realized that the internet was a very cheap way to reach consumer markets.  They correctly predicted that in a typical home, the personal computer would be as popular as a television set, and internet connection would be as popular as a phone line.   But the most exciting part of it all was that selling things via the internet was essentially FREE in that, aside from the internet service provider, there was no entity to charge for having your website appear for all to see.

One of the eariliest of this select group is Amazon.com.  For those who recall the days of pre-Windows, Amazon had its advertisement for its online bookstore back in the days of black screens and light-blue text.  To this day Amazon does not have a “brick and mortar” store, sticking with the philosophy that it was possible to have an entirely on-line business model.  They proved it was possible, and the rest is history.

Next– a Zoo is born…