No one Really Makes Money Online

People think that itís easy to make money from the Internet. While the cost of setting up a company has gotten cheaper on the average compared to the Industrial Age overhead. You also have more people with the same idea to compete with now. So in exchange for less capital, you get more competition. If itís not one thing itís the other.

There is a theory why not everybody, a large majority of online businesses fail to make money online: The Pareto Principle.

Simply stated. The Pareto Principle posits that there is an imbalance in the way wealth flows. A significant minority of a certain group will always get a larger share than the rest of the majority in terms of certain desirables like profit, market share, customer satisfaction, etc.

Most people tend to assume that all things are in equilibrium in one way or another. It was assumed that 100 units of input usually and logically gives you simply 100 units of output as well. But this is not the case. This fallacy is so prevalent most people take it at face value.

The Truth is that 100 units of input can actually give you back 0 to more than 100 units of output. If in actuality, you take a look at reality, when the causes and effects of a phenomenon are analyzed, more often than not it will show an imbalanced result.

We use the numbers 80/20 to show the disparity in general, but the results arenít usually along this ratio. There is usually no 50/50 balance but more often an 80/20, 70/30, or even a 99/1 ratio. Therefore, when we have grasped at the true critical relationships of a phenomena, then the natural state of things is most likely to be significantly imbalanced.

So what does this have to do with making money online? Very elementary, Dear Watson. The Pareto Principle also applies in force to the Internet. Why are most businesses not making much money online? It is because a businessís presence is not optimized to its strengths, giving Murphyís Law a big field day.

To be more specific, here are the reasons why:

1. Great wealth flows to the most optimized. Businesses that have spent the time to capitalize on their strengths and protect their weaknesses will have the advantage in attracting more business. This is because most people online who want to purchase a service or a product prefer that it can be reliable as well as trustworthy with the money they spend.

Businesses that have determined their target market and spent the time aggressively wooing these customers get the most revenue. Take note that even a slight advantage is highly valued by customers.

2. Concentration on a strength that matter to the customer. Markets are fickle. And online businesses that take the time to identify their target markets needs and wants will always get the customerís favor and money.

Another benefit on making the effort to communicate with the customer is the surgical and precise allocation of capital to support and enhance a feature customers value. Businesses like these are never flying blind.

3. Businesses that react or initiate actions to positive or negative customer feedback the fastest gets the businesses. Companies that address a customerís feedback for better service and sustains it while making a profit, gets more customers to be loyal to the business.

Since customers mostly do not want to start searching for a better business unless they see the advantage from a competitor or worse, forced by incompetent service from their current provider, it would logically be better for a business to just make significant adjustments to keep customers than lose them to competitors.

Most online businesses do not see the potential dangers of ignoring feedback from customers and not taking action to rectify their concerns in the most effective way possible. The next point explains this.

4. Small factors exponentially affect huge outputs. Imagine a herd of zebra in an African plain. When one zebra spots a lion nearby, it alerts the rest of the herd, and they run for safety.

Same goes with the money from customers. If at a crucial moment negative feedback from customers hit critical mass, customers will start moving to the nearest seemingly competent competitor for safety. Customers follow safety in numbers.

This is also the same for making profits. Customers who found gold in a company in terms of product or service will try to get everybody else on the bandwagon, creating a vortex of spending that concentrates on the lucky company. Sales will be exponential as long as it can sustain the phenomena that customers are crazy about.

Govt announces 21pc pay hike; arrears from 2006

New Delhi, Aug 14 (PTI) The UPA Government today announced an average increase of 21 per cent in salaries of over 50 lakh government employees with effect from January 1, 2006, adopting the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations. The wage hike would increase the financial implication for the Centre by Rs 17,798 crore annually and the arrears with effect from January 2006 would cost Rs 29,373 crore, Information and Broadcasting Minister P R Dasmunsi told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

The government increased the minimum entry level salary of a government employee to Rs 7,000 against Rs 6,660 recommended by the Commission headed by Justice B N Srikrishna who submitted the report in March this year. Consequently, it would push up the total emoluments of an employee at the lowest level beyond Rs 10,000 per month including allowances.

It also increased the rate of annual increment from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent. In the defence sector, it approved at least three assured promotions for all defence forces personnel and civilian employees under the modified Assured Career Progression scheme.

While civilians would get this after 10, 20 and 30 years of service, defence forces jawans would be promoted under ACP after 8, 16 and 24 years. The hiked salary would be given to the employees beginning September this year and the arrears from January 2006 would be given in cash in two installments -- 40 per cent this fiscal and 60 per cent in 2009-10.

Making Money on Internet

When we say making money on Internet then its not like finding people who are ready to share there wealth with you and providing them with your account details to transfer money. It's actually more like earning money on net.

How and why will it be possible to earn money on net? In fact how does anybody earn money in real life also. It's by doing some sort of jobs or service for someone, or by providing some information and charging for it, or hooking up two individuals with complementing needs and charging a commission for it. Or even selling something and earning your share of profit through it.

So what kind of jobs one can do on internet, to be legitimately eligible to earn money as a salary or hourly wages? Well all those tasks that someone finds laborious and would like to outsource to others.

1. Data Entry.

a. Transcription: You have information in images, audio, video or some other media and would like to get them converted to text.

b. Writing contents: Well writing contents is also like a Data Entry job but you are not provided the source to refer for it. So either perform a web search for the topic or input information based on your knowledge and experience.

2. Earn by Advertisements: If your site or blog had a good audience and a lot of visitors visit your site, then advertisers would be willing to place their ads on your site/blog to boost their presence and popularity. You do get some amount of money per impression of their ads or per click. So you can earn by blogging.

3. Advertising networks: Like Google Adsense and Yahoo publisher network and many more. In this type of advertising you don't have to find individual advertisers but these networks find them for you and places them in the ad space you provide to these networks. They charge advertisers for showing their ads in their network of sites including yours and you get a share of what your site earn for Affiliate advertising networks.

4. Sponsored content writing: If you have a large audience and have good influence over your audience, people do pay to write positively about their products, services, sites. There are ethical concerns about it but one is still independent to express their views.

5. Writing articles: If you are an expert in a field than you can write quality articles and get paid for you knowledge. There are companies that pay up to 300$ for a quality article.

6. Web Development: If you know a little bit of web programming you can offer services for custom designing websites based on requirements. There are free tools available these days which can ease a lot of tasks, but some customization still require skills and thus new users are ready to pay for a catchy website. It can be a good idea to develop some sample web designs to showcase on a blog or site for your customers.

7. Forum Moderation: With a lot of forums coming up and number of users, threads and posts going up, it becomes difficult for owners to moderate them. So they do look out for moderators to control the forum activities and making sure users are following forum guidelines.

8. Get Paid To: There are N number of GPT sites, that claim to paid users to read mails, complete surveys, click ads, refer others to them. My personal experience says most of them are scams.

9. Online Surveys: Although there has been a lot of bad reputation for survey sites being scams, there still are some genuine opportuinities for online surveys. Some online survyes do pay but you receive a lot of junk mails and there are chances of identity theft as well. Since the personal information provided by you about yourself might be used by someone else.

10. Online Stores: This is a best bet according to me. To earn from online stores one has to signup as a seller with any ecommerce online shopping site. As a rule of thumb buy low and sell for more. But in the competetive market where there are so many vendors already selling their stuff online, finding the right goods that sell might be tricky.

Internet is mainly traffic game. Most of the scams exist to gain traffic to their otherwise DULL or dead sites. Most of the schemes and opportunities that exist on internet are based out of utilizing traffic or finding ways to manipulate traffic.

Whenever you come across any online earning opportunity, try and evaluate how is it being created in the first place. What and how is the other person being benefited out of it. And you shall be able to figure out if its a scam or genuine opportunity.

Traffic or "Juice" in other words is the key in online world, and If you can come up with new or innovative way to use or monetize this Juice you can start the next GOOGLE.

Corporate Lingo

1."We will do it" means" You will do it"

2."You have done a great job" means" More work to be given to you"

3."We are working on it" means" We have not yet started working on the same"

4."Tomorrow first thing in the morning" means" Its not getting done "At least not tomorrow!".

5."After discussion we will decide-I am very open to views" means" I have already decided, I will tell you what to do"

6."There was a slight miscommunication" means" We had actually lied"

7."Lets call a meeting and discuss" means" I have no time now, will talk later"

8."We can always do it" means" We actually cannot do the same on time"

9."We are on the right track but there needs to be a slight extension of the deadline" means "The project is screwed up, we cannot deliver on time."

10."We had slight differences of opinion "means" We had actually fought"

11."Make a list of the work that you do and let's see how I can help you" means" Anyway you have to find a way out no help from me"

12."You should have told me earlier" means" Well even if you told me earlier that would have made hardly any difference!"

13."We need to find out the real reason" means" Well I will tell you where your fault is"

14."Well Family is important, your leave is always granted. Just ensure that the work is not affected," means," Well you know..."

15."We are a team," means," I am not the only one to be blamed"

16."That's actually a good question" means "I do not know anything about it"

17."All the Best" means" You are in trouble"

Innovation

I have been listening this word a lot these days. Infact this is one of the top buzzwords in the corporate.

Innovation is generally a new way of doing something, challenging the existent, or coming with something entirely new. Whatever it may be it is to address some problem with a smart solution.

Till recently I used to find this word very fuzzy and complex. But when I think about it now..

According to me Innovation is a three step process:
1. Identification of a common problem to address. - (analysis/requirement)
2. Coming up with feasible solution(s) and implementing the best possible. - (development)
3. Making the results of the effort public with data as proof. - (marketing)

This model is very simple and exactly co-relates with the Product Development Lifecycle model. So what's the difference?

The difference lies in the scope of the product to be developed or the problem being addressed. Innovation can be recursively applicable at each of these steps too.

The Innovation starts at the very first step of identification of the problem to be addressed, but the fruits are visible after the final step of marketing it to the world. The success of Innovation is mostly linked with the successful marketing of the result. Afterall the driving force behind the innovation for all organisation is to make big bucks out of it.

According to me, The success of Innovation is based on three basic facts:
1. Commonality of the problem to adress: The problem to be addressed shoud be common enough so that the solution can be marketted easily.

2. Severity of the problem: The problem should be pinching enough that people are ready to adapt to the solution. In turn shell out money to accept the innovative solution.

3. Feasibility of the solution implementation: The implementation itself should be realistic and feasible in terms of time, money and effort spent on it.