After reading about Amazon.coms triple profit recording I'm lost for words. Can't help but feel envious of these people, most of whom are hardly much older than me raking in silly money after starting up a net business. Recently a few guys sold an internet personalized radio site to an American media company for something like £25 million. Their idea was to personalize peoples selection, so as you check out tracks a program takes notice of what you're into and goes about selecting music similar to that you have chosen..

Concepts.

Its all about concepts its got nothing to do with business (as such) its all to do with consept. When the internet became popular people sat around and thought of how to best use, rather exploit, this 'new' technology. Businesses on the net are now portals, they don't sell anything themselves they allow for others to do so, others have come up with ideas to better network people from across the globe Google have their ad words on sites like this, Myspace and other sites are looking to become household names, after making enough money its a given that myspace.com will fix up to better their programming making it more versatile and involving. Then theres that virtual reality 'website' or game. Secondlife. They're moving in on being worth a few hundred million. having combined Sims City with the internet in 3D and have done so well that its literally a Secondlife for people and with businesses paying money to advertise and own businesses on its server.

All in all they're finding ways, making programs to do this and that and collecting the pounds and pence. Hardly strenuious mass marketing, product shifting or service selling and now mobile phones are becoming more computer like theres even more money to make.

Its funny how localized people become when faced with something with such potential. The spoilt for choice, 'child in the sweet shop' analogy comes to mind prehaps even, 'deer in the headlights'. Where do you go when faced with a global network with millions if not billions of people online at any one time with twice as many websites and counting? The kid in the sweet shop stands shocked, open eyed, the first thing he goes for is what he knows best before settling down enough to try each sweet individualy, the deer is stunned by the lights and speed of the moving veichle commiting itself to awe in what could be its last few second alive... ok the deer in the headlights isn't such a relevant analogy but you get the point. Most people log onto the net and surf for what they know rather than crunch the gears and push the limits, most of us don't even know that the various search engines vary in that they search diffrently and are supposed to be used as such along with codes to better aid your search. A lot of new ideas get lost in the wearing down of specific keys on a keyboard over others.

Its this localization that creates household names in the world of Dot com million/billionaires. The internet is mostly used for specific purposes.

Entertainment, education, networking.

Prehaps 'searching' falls into its own category, of course 'commerce' is a given and is entwined with those mentioned. A dot com concept therefore has to open the doors to those three purposes in some way or offer a new technology/program to better those purposes. There are programs that personalize your use of the net, much like the one mentioned but more general, logging your searches and tieing them to other websites and products that may be of intrest to you thus opening the door, helping realize the potential of the internet as us stags and deers are still in awe of its capabilities.

Japanese websites are so 'another level' I don't think we can even use them here in the west without having to download this and that... if our computers can keep up with it in the first place.

Anyway, before I drift off on one, what do you think?

What do people use the internet for?
What do the main dot com innovations focus on?

And understanding that the internet is a networking global portal of possibilty (to put it lightly), what innovations and ideas (both on and offline) could potentially better aid it as a 'new' technology?

At times having an idea is one thing, putting it together and making it work is another. In light of Marcus Garveys comments on technology, a Black (Pan) African focused group of inventors and innovators set up by people into program making and engineering would do well. Encouraing our people to invent new technologies and ideas, patenting them in an African country, getting them produced and so on. .lol. There you go, an idea I have no ability to pursue.

* What do people think of Dot com businesses and ideas in general? Has anyone bumped into any intresting ones recently? Tend to find that once you break free from Microsofts grip on computing things start to look diffrent, Firefox allow for people to write programs for its explorer as do other companies.

Peace
A

Find a solution to something period and point blank

Look at the Youtube founders which started because they wanted to send each other videos over the web.

Amazon set out to make cash, but many others just got lucky.

So think of something stupid and find a techie to put it online.

I hope that you will not be the second coming of Bob Johnson

First thought: the internet's only any use if you can get on it - and there's still a fair chunk of people on the planet who cannot. So connecting technologies will have to develop, probably wirelessly as people won't wanna wait for thousands of miles of cable to be laid. So mobile connecting technologies - and the devices that make it happen - are set to grow.

Second thought: once you get on it, you then have to understand what's there. Up to now, English has been the language of choice if you want a global audience, and that will probably continue unless the Chinese have a grand plan for us all to learn Mandarin. Remains to be seen what that will mean for the thousands of other languages that exist....

Third thought: most people like simplicity, so applications that make life's decisions easier will prosper. So far, this has meant stuff you used to have to go somewhere to get is now available down a phone line. Partly explains why Amazon has done so well - you can get stuff to your door quickly that previously you might have to travel to another town or even country to acquire. But to go further, sellers will need a lot more information in real time about our wants and needs, as well as cleverer ways of convincing us that we need their product and not someone else's. Big privacy issues there....but it will happen.

It's all about the human need to connect. The more you tap into that, and relate to those things that lots of people want to do when they connect, the more likely success will be. We are alredy growing a generation of people who will look at the web as a means of finding a job, finding friends, buying goods and services, and organising their lives as natural an act as breathing.

Sounds good? Personally not convinced yet......