How to Make Money on the Internet Ebook

Info Reports From Self Made Millionaire!

INTRODULTION History and background of the Internet, World Wide Web, and other on-line services

No matter how old you are, you have had to have heard the terms on-line, Internet, cyberspace, the World Wide Web, America On-Line or some deviation of them. Most people, all over the world, are basically aware that these service and communication media exist, but have never gone on-line to experience them.

Today, with billions of people in the world, over 40 million people as of 1997, have access to the Internet and/or World Wide Web. The Internet was created in the 1960's by the Defense Department under the authority of President Richard Nixon as a way for the world's computers to seamlessly communicate if ever there were a nuclear holocaust. Originally, the primary computer networks linked to this system of communications were universities and government databases including the military and a few large corporate systems.

The Internet was essentially abandoned by the government in the early seventies. For twenty years, it was used mostly by researchers and college students. As a matter of fact, it was considered "bad taste" for a company to be on the Internet until the creation of "HTTP" in 1991. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol allowed the Internet to evolve from a text only environment to one of graphics, video and sound. No longer a medium just for computer geeks and nerds, the Internet evolved into a medium to now not only be driven by text but also by vivid interactivity. The news media picked up on this government-backed innovation and have sensationalized its growth ever since.

The World Wide Web is like this:

Imagine if you had a room full of people and a big ball of twine. You started at the front of the room and gave the ball of twine to one person in the front of the room and, without cutting it, passed it around from person to person, stretching it diagonally and horizontally until every person in the room had a piece of it creating a "web." Then you took that web and suspended it in the air above everyone and, from where each was in that room, you then took a wire and ran it from the center of their heads to a point on the web directly above them and attached it.

Now imagine those wires as phone lines, the web as the phone company accepting your dialed phone number and plugging you into wherever you are calling, and the people connected to the web as all the different places you could call. The people in the room represent millions of host computers in thousands of computer networks. HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is the switch that tells your computer that you are looking to go somewhere on the Internet. HTTP combined with your URL (Universal Resource Locator) will tell your computer where to take you on the Internet just as your telephone number tells the phone company who you are calling.

This crude example is the best way to visualize what the Internet or World Wide Web actually is and how everyone on it is connected. Today, the Internet (or the World Wide Web as it should properly be called since the term "Internet" was used to originally refer to a text only communication environment) is now comprised of millions of host computers in thousands of computer networks, and that figure is doubling every year! Five million new users log onto the Internet every month. Anyone who is in business is thinking of ways to incorporate this new dynamic ground-floor
medium into their business.

On-line services are essentially the same, except you are accessing a computer bulletin board system (BBS). They are much easier to use than the Internet, but are limited to just the users that are on that service unless you connect to the Internet via them. Most provide basic e-mail services and allow you to send electronic mail to Internet and on-line service users. Some on-line systems, like America On-Line, boast memberships of millions of users. Today there are wars between Internet Service Providers, and on-line providers for the cyberspace consumer dollar. On-line services compete by providing access to the Internet for their users and ISPs have responded by giving their users unlimited monthly access or a high number of usage hours for less than $60 a month, and creating more user friendly environments. Most on-line services charge a monthly access fee that is less than $15 per month for about 10 hours of connect time and about $3.00 per hour thereafter.

ISPs and on-line service providers both have their places for on-line marketers. In this guide, you will be shown how to utilize both to their fullest potential. Most people who are on-line to make money have both an ISP account and an on-line service account.

Cyberspace, the term now used to encompass most on-line communications, is today's "new frontier" for marketers. As the years roll around, we will see more businesses and people going on-line and more of the world's communication and commerce being conducted there. UPS (United Parcel Service) is now saving an estimated $75,000 a month since they put their package tracking software on-line. Now, instead of customers calling them and running up man-hours and phone time, they can go on-line to track their own packages. Cyberspace will add convenience and point-of-purchase capabilities for just about any information-based product or service. An example could be this ebook that you are reading now. This ebook could have been purchased and shipped to you on-line in a matter of minutes. The future of cyberspace is exciting and unlimited.

To help you take advantage of all the marketing potential of this popular medium, we have put this ebook together to show you how to get on-line, choose the best service, find products to market on-line, choose the best on-line marketing strategies. So, no matter if you choose to buy and sell, do auctions, place ads or start a 900 business, you'll have all the basics to market on-line!