29 replies to this topic

[imjjss]

Sure I know you are browsing and posting right now

Seriously, I'm talking about online business.
Besides serving ads on our blog, many people also provide service or products online.

I'm a Chinese language instructor, and now I'm building a website for it, will move my courses online soon. That's what I plan to do on internet. The courses will be the same but the teaching method will change a lot. I have put a lot of time and efforts into this reform of my business, I feel it's going to be a great improvement.

What about you? I've seen many online business, but I'm more curious on how things are going on among us-- new online business owners.

[Ahsaniqbal111]

Currently, I am doing what most people do. When I first open up firefox, I quickly go to gmail to see any new emails. Then I check on my adsense earnings (the realtime reporting of adsense is just brilliant). Then I log in to my facebook account to see any new updates in my social circle.
After all that, I either close my browser, or start working on my website. That's my routing now a days.

However, I am looking forward to start a proper online business in coming years. Currently, I have huge time problem. I have got a tough exam ahead and I hardly manage any time for my website. My website MANanatomy.com is based on Human Anatomy. It is a medical subject, and gets good number of visitors from search traffic. As a result, adsense ads are performing brilliantly on my website. I have added only 25-30% of the content on my website, and still I am making almost the same amount of money that my father does (please keep in mind that I belong to Pakistan and for any type of work here, wages are very low). I am so desperate with myself because of not being able to add more content to the website. I currently have 300 pages and I receive about 2000 pageviews per day. So If I create more pages, the traffic will rise in a direct proportion.
When I finish my exams, I will try to quickly complete my website.

After completion, the website would have about 2000 pages, and if the traffic increases in a direct proportion, I will be able to generate a healthy income from my website. After I complete my website, I have planned to start another project, in which I won't rely on ads to generate money from my content. Instead, I would charge some fee for people to view my content. This type of system works fine in medical field, because the content is of high value and is not easily available. Some of my friends told me that I should apply the system to my current website. They say that I should make the current content sort of premium and charge a fee to make it visible to users. However, I don't think I am going to do this. I have two reasons for this.

Number one is that adsense ads are performing brilliantly on my website and even with such a low traffic, I am able to generate enough money to not only support my education, but also make some savings. I always imagine how the earnings could increase, if I publish more quality content on the website and increase the traffic. This way, not only adsense earnings would increase, but my site will also become eligible for a number of CPM publishers. Therefore, the earnings should increase by a significant factor. And I want these earnings to continue coming so that I have a stable base for testing and experimenting with my next project. With this website running adsense and other CPM ads, I will get a good amount of money by the end of every month and will not have to worry about my financial condition. Thus I would be able to work on my next project in a better way.

The second point is that 300 pages of my website are already public. If I request google to remove them from their index, then the search engine reputation of my website is going to decline tremendously and the website will be lost for all the major and minor terms in search results. Plus, I will have to create additional pages for marketing of the current content and I will have to target additional keywords that I currently don't need to. Thus I will not only be increasing work burden on myself, but also terminating the ad money. The website may start making money for subscription fees etc but it might take a huge amount of time.

So once I get my current website completed, I will start next project that will be more like the traditional online business.

[infotron]

Well i am working with two website that are based on online buisness and another is my training centers official website its based on eyeos and supports lots of activity and lots of free things like free sms and email and support for 24 hour .
and i planne to start it with online admission , its really going in good speed so will be published in next month.

[8ennett]

Currently I am unemployed but am putting every second of free time I have in to the development of my new game engine. The original plan was to create a way for those without any experience in programming or web design a means to create their own Text-based MMORPG games easily using a series of web forms and configuration options.

Anyway while developing the engine I was contacted by several people who were following the project asking if they could take what had been made so far and create their own games with it that utilise premium subscriptions. I was a bit apprehensive about this as I had originally designed the engine to be free. So I decided to deny their request and had an idea. I am continuing to develop the free version of the engine which is very close to a beta release and decided I would also release a premium version of the engine afterwards which would require the user to purchase a license. This would open the possibility for people to create games for profit and would be fair on me who put all this time in to developing the engine so they can make a profit. It also gives me the opportunity to turn the engines development in to full-time work giving me a reason to develop more and more advanced features in to both the free and the premium versions of the engine. It also offers the chance to develop premium version only modules. So my dream of offering free game design software to the world is kept intact, and if I am able to earn enough per month to cover the bills then it frees me up to develop more modules for the free version.

So what started out as a series of simple tutorials here on astahost is slowly developing in to a large-scale project with a growing community of people already and a potential opportunity to support my son and myself.

[rflexii]

am doing business on the internet, it gives me the opportunity to reach out to a larger market potentials

[manuleka]

business wise, i don't really do much of it online... although i do trades online through local ebay sites... mostly online is to check emails, and post here on astahost and update websites of friends which i'm looking after...

and also download games for my ipod touch lol...

[Eleanor]

The Internet is just a hobby for me. While I'm intrigued by the ways in which people can earn a living online, I just don't have the time or desire to research it properly. Maybe someday...

[velma]

Off topic : I am currently using the internet to delete spammers present on astahost

On topic : I would consider moderation on astahost & ks a pseudo business since I have started spending time on the forums again. But in the future I would dedicate a website for teaching but that would take plenty of time

Since it has been months since the author added this topic, you could give us a status on how your website is going imjjss

[H.O.D.]

The problem with the internet is that if you're not serious about what you're doing, you can easily get distracted to do something else! This is the problem that I'm facing currently. I'm not doing any "business" in the strict sense, but I do have a couple of projects that I feel could be helpful to others. But the moment I start working on those projects, something else comes along to distract me (posting here, for example!) Sometimes those distractions are urgent (if I don't post, I lost my hosting) but sometimes the distractions are quite unnecessary (forwarded youtube videos, funny emails, etc) This is affecting my projects and they have been delayed quite a lot. If someone here can give a few hints on how to avoid this distraction, then my "business" of finishing my projects could definitely go off much smoother.

[manuleka]

The problem with the internet is that if you're not serious about what you're doing, you can easily get distracted to do something else! This is the problem that I'm facing currently. I'm not doing any "business" in the strict sense, but I do have a couple of projects that I feel could be helpful to others. But the moment I start working on those projects, something else comes along to distract me (posting here, for example!) Sometimes those distractions are urgent (if I don't post, I lost my hosting) but sometimes the distractions are quite unnecessary (forwarded youtube videos, funny emails, etc) This is affecting my projects and they have been delayed quite a lot. If someone here can give a few hints on how to avoid this distraction, then my "business" of finishing my projects could definitely go off much smoother.

you're not alone my friend I've been on that page for sometime now... but it shows how vast the internet is and how much it has evolved into our daily lives

[fengzi597]

I do a lot of things on Internet. I study,play games,watch videos,work,buy stuff on Internet.
Sometimes i can‘t imagine my life without it.

[manuleka]

....Sometimes i can‘t imagine my life without it.

agree... Computer and Internet seem to go hand-in-hand now... a Computer without Internet is one useless piece hehe

[yordan]

And what would be your life without a computer? Mine was broken and I had to wait for repair during two weeks, very uncomfortable.

[starscream]

My old computer is sent for repair-motherboard issue. I am posting this via mobile. I find it hard to use mobile for work. I just cant live without laptops and desktop.

I dont think i can stand two weeks like that. Lol. It is really hard to just watch tv and miss computers. Atleast for me to do things everday.

[Quatrux]

Internet for me is for information, news and seek of solutions, examples for best practices, sometimes it's annoying to read the manual, you just google search for a solution with the same or similar problem and try to do it, so it's really useful for work. But on the Internet you can easily get distracted by something else.

I don't really play to much games these days...

But Internet for me is also for communication

[yordan]

But Internet for me is also for communication

I agree, communication is the key point today.
Some years ago, we spent a lot of time communicating with a paper and a pencil, sending the paper through snailmail, and then waited a long time before obtaining an answer.
Now internet is almost a real-time tool, you write down your mail and your friend gets it and is able to answer instantly. The smartphones add more efficiency, if you are waiting at the bus stop, you can answer your mails, that's prima!
Of course instant messengers give still more simultaneity to this communication process, however I love the way you can spend a lot of time writing your word-processing document and then ship the document and then wait until your sister has finished carefully reading the document and ships the modified version.

[Quatrux]

I agree, communication is the key point today.
Some years ago, we spent a lot of time communicating with a paper and a pencil, sending the paper through snailmail, and then waited a long time before obtaining an answer.
Now internet is almost a real-time tool, you write down your mail and your friend gets it and is able to answer instantly. The smartphones add more efficiency, if you are waiting at the bus stop, you can answer your mails, that's prima!
Of course instant messengers give still more simultaneity to this communication process, however I love the way you can spend a lot of time writing your word-processing document and then ship the document and then wait until your sister has finished carefully reading the document and ships the modified version.

Who would have thought that it will become so easy and comfortable? I remember when I was a kid and in movies some people could talk through phone and see their faces, it was like, duuhh, impossible, now everyone can do it easilly with Skype or any other tool and a web camera, even in a street or in a bus station with a smart phone if it has a connection

I guess later, we will have printers, 3D printers with which we will be able to print anything, we will need to buy materials, download a 3D plan of something, like sneakers and print them out with a 3D printer and whola, new sneakers, you won't even need businesses from which to buy those sneakers, Today I can say: duh that's impossible, but after 20 years I think it will be possible. I guess those 3D models of sneakers will be available on torrent sites? Even though I don't know, what will be cheaper, to print out your car device or to buy it online It depends on the future super 3D printer I guess

[Ahsaniqbal111]

That 3d printer technology seems really awesome and appears to be the next big thing in human development after computers. We cannot even imagine how much change it can bring in the way we humans live. It could simply change the entire life style and business model of today, as most businesses today are concerned with production and supply. These sectors will be affected the most because as @quatrux mentioned, all you need would be a model that would most likely be in software form. For such model, there would be no need for a physical supply chain and they could be easily got through the internet.
The production sector will be affected more than the supply sector as there will still be need of getting the raw materials. But there will be no need of mass production of something because everyone would then be able to produce stuff according to his likings.

But that is future and no one has seen it yet. We will have to wait and see what happens in the next 50 or so years to this world.

[manuleka]

That 3d printer technology seems really awesome and appears to be the next big thing in human development after computers. We cannot even imagine how much change it can bring in the way we humans live. It could simply change the entire life style and business model of today, as most businesses today are concerned with production and supply. These sectors will be affected the most because as @quatrux mentioned, all you need would be a model that would most likely be in software form. For such model, there would be no need for a physical supply chain and they could be easily got through the internet.
The production sector will be affected more than the supply sector as there will still be need of getting the raw materials. But there will be no need of mass production of something because everyone would then be able to produce stuff according to his likings.

But that is future and no one has seen it yet. We will have to wait and see what happens in the next 50 or so years to this world.

3D Printers wow... that must cost a fortune hehe (well for me i guess) ....

[Chellesei ♔]

Internet serves as communication, entertainment, and information for me --- I use it to communicate with other people through social networking sites and communities. Just last last year (2010), creating websites, editing videos and images, playing games, and downloading stuffs have been one of my hobbies. I also enjoy watching dramas, anime, and reading manga in the internet so it's also a form of entertainment for me. It also helps in my studies and in finding answers to some of my questions. Whenever I have to search for something, I just have to type the keywords and then with just a few clicks, I've already found what I need.
Using the internet is always one of my daily routine. That's why whenever the connection is down, I just don't know what to do to entertain myself.