How to make money online?

[VetLegion]

I'm prepared for the usual onslaught of witty remarks , but this is a serious topic.

Day in and day out I see sites using the wonderful Google ad technology to make a buck. I've recently begun to read about it and it really seems to work. I'm not talking about buying a Ferrari BTW., but what's wrong with an extra couple hundred of dollars a month from a site? At the moment I'm trying to figure out what kind of site would attract enough traffic for this to work.

Then, there is the other type of online business: coming up not with new content but a new product or technology. I've been reading up on this too. AJAX seems to be the buzzword, and lots of applications using it are in the making. I have an idea for an app too, maybe I'll start writing it tonight.

Some of those things are so simple and, frankly, idiotic, that they can't but inspire. I'm thinking del.icio.us. It's a way to store bookmarks online. Some company recently bought the site for some millions of dollars. What?? If you can sell that, you can sell anything.

The world of making money online begins to fascinate me, and I'm pretty sure I want a peace of the cake. What do you think?

[Urban Ranger]

Re: How to make money online?

Originally posted by VetLegion
I'm thinking del.icio.us. It's a way to store bookmarks online. Some company recently bought the site for some millions of dollars.

This I don't understand at all. Seems like a very silly thing to put your money in.

[C0ckney]

do the words 'goat' and 'porn' mean anything to you?

[VetLegion]

Re: Re: How to make money online?

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


This I don't understand at all. Seems like a very silly thing to put your money in.

I've just checked, the guy sold the site for 15-30 million dollars (undisclosed) to Yahoo!

Now, if there's a point to that site, I don't get it either.

But the point is, it can be done

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by C0ckney
do the words 'goat' and 'porn' mean anything to you?

"good time" is my first association
Now, how can I make money off that?

[SlowwHand]

My daughter goes to thrift shops and garage sales, and resells on EBay. Doing part time as her hobby, brings in 600 a month. Her goal is to fulltime it.

[VetLegion]

Great idea

[Urban Ranger]

You could make some money that way, but nothing like selling a website to a big company (or have VCs shower money over you).

[Pekka]

Sloww, wow, that good? Nice work

Vet, Ok first of all, you are asking the right question but with the wrong preset.

Ok, you don't need google ad, google anything to make money. In fact, forget about google and look at the big picture. THe fact is, if you can attract a lot of people to your website of what ever, it has potential of making money, simple as that.

If you can get lots of hits daily, you can make money. Period. Now, to do that, is something completely different. You need interesting content. It needs to be updated daily. It needs to be quality stuff both in layouts, interface etc and content.

To get someone look into it once is only a question of letting people know about it. To start the snowball effect, where the link spreads on its own, and it gets to be somekind of household name for what the website is about, now that requires more. The holy trinity is layout, content and updating. But there are lots of sites like these and they never make it.

As for inventions, those are always cool stuff. Most of them are really simple. Go for it.

And remember, there's no such thing as easy money. If it came to you easy, it means you need to give it to me.

[VetLegion]

Yeah, the way I see it it's either content, something I don't really have, or service, something I don't really have either, but may come up with something. Another option is, find a web service successful in English, and just translate and hope for the best. Ebay, blogger and other services have local equivalents here.

Of course, the big money is in startups, and just reading the numbers for how much they sell makes my eyes glow
See here for example: http://blog.acmelab.org/?p=35

What I would like to know is how many of these projects start out as hobbies and/or labours of love, and how many are started just to make money. If the second group is smaller or nonexistant, I'm in trouble right there

[Pekka]

You are in trouble right there

Basically, you're lacking the idea. That's something you need to figure out first.

[VetLegion]

Well maybe you have an idea you've been toying with, but have given up on it in order to pursue a better idea, so you can now give me the first idea for free? I extend the offer to everyone reading this thread. Tell me some good ideas


By doing that you agree that I own all rights to the ideas you present, as well as your house after you repay the mortgage. Thank you.

[VetLegion]

Oh yeah, don't mention Randy Berliner, I'm not interested

Hmm... something, something... I can almost feel the millions in the bank, I'm only an idea apart from them...

[Dis]

[VetLegion]

OK, I've thought of something.

Here, you can get someone to retype your handwriting for about 0.50 euros a page. I could make a company that would accept orders here, scan the stuff, and outsource it to India (ideally, child labour in terrible conditions) where they would retype it for 0.25 euros. The difference is my profit. What do you think, any money in this idea?