| By 24 HOURS NEWS SERVICES
Internet the New Hot Spot for Entrepreneurs
Yahoo! eagerly snatched up the photo-sharing site Flickr, media mogul Rupert Murdoch hedged his bets on MySpace, and Google recently agreed to purchase the video entertainment site YouTube for $1.65 billion. Wherever you look, entrepreneurs who were once struggling to make a presence for their fledgling companies in the vast maze of the Internet are now seeing their hard work pay off, quite literally.
Married entrepreneurs Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake were sitting in their Vancouver home one day, trying to find ways to improve their struggling online gaming company. Shortly after creating a program that would let their users share photos with each other over the Internet, Flickr was born. Sixteen months later, Flickr had grown at such a rate that Yahoo! was compelled to buy it for $30 million.
Flickr is just one of the many latest startups taking advantage of the new online boom. The success of such other online companies as MySpace and YouTube demonstrates the new high-tech wave that is rolling in, a wave that entrepreneurs are ready and willing to ride for all its worth.
Entrepreneurship expert Evan Carmichael believes this rising trend of digital entrepreneurs is one that is likely to continue for some time. “IT industries have recently been growing at more than double the rate of the overall economy,” he says. “As long as this continues, entrepreneurs will no doubt be competing to find their spot within that growth.”
This new digital economy is not something that can just be ignored, says Carmichael. “75% of Americans have home access to the Internet. Online traffic is doubling almost every 100 days. Businesses that aren’t ready to take advantage of that will find themselves trailing the pack.”
As the online consumer market continues to expand so too does the number of entrepreneurs ready to meet the demand. “With low overhead costs and no market barrier, small online startups find little standing in their way,” says Carmichael. “All they need is an idea and an understanding of both the online and offline structure of business.”
The rules of engagement might be the same but new best practices are being established by entrepreneurs industry wide. Company blogs and pay-per-click advertising are just two of the strategies online companies are beginning to now take advantage of to make the most of their online venture.
Whereas the likes of Google, now known as Web 1.0 companies, are already well established, these newer Web 2.0 companies are just beginning to emerge. “From boom to bust and back again, tech is once again becoming hot,” says Carmichael “The Web has come alive with entrepreneurial activity and not only are these entrepreneurs making a profit for themselves, but they’re actually changing people’s habits and the way the world does business.”
As new digital applications and companies spring forth at a rapid rate, entrepreneurs are proving that they will not be left behind. “If your business is not ready to ride the Internet 2.0 highway,” says Carmichael, “you had best get out of the way.”
For more information see www.evancarmichael. com. |
