Through the highs and lows on the internet like with all businesses there are opportunities to be had the trick is to find them.

Byron Reese   CEO,   PageWise Inc

What matters to consumers is who provides the best service at the best price this idea via the internet has leveled the playing field so that small one man bands can compete against larger corporations.

Previously there were several stumbling blocks stopping that no longer exist these include getting online was very hard - this no longer an issues with the advent of broadband. No one wanted to do business over the internet - society has now changed it’s mind set and trusts internet based companies. Internet search didn’t work very well and caused consumer frustration, google has single handily solved this problem. No ecomnoic way of making money on the internet - this is now opened up with companies like PayPal allowing any one to take online payments.

You already own everything you need, A computer a home and the ablitly to type. There are three areas that can get you started with your internet business.

1. Content companies, believe it or not the web needs more content, and this is an easy way to get free traffic to your site. Google will get people to you. Public domain information is a quick and easy way to do this, out of print books, copyright expired books, etc. Government publications are in public domain owned by tax payers. Re-organise infomation that is out there, aggregate other content from other sites. Data mine information that is out there and resell it, for example collect business information and re package and sell to other parties. User generated content is the current trend for doing this but relies on people coming to your site and writing it! the alternative is write it yourself. The more specific the content the better. Remember content is media not just text.

2. Services, facilitate the use of services. What do people not like to doing and commercialise that service. Then use the internet to provide that service. Alternatively break up a service to sell it multiple times. i.e. share a personal assistant, one person mulitple sales.

3. Sell products you do not own. Referals to other areas i.e. conect a buyer of something to a seller. Commission junction for example allow you to resell other peoples products. Sell custom products, or modular products that there are to many possible options to buy in a store. Custom design work. For example Cafe press.

4. Technlogy site. Snape together content that is out there and bring them together to create a new product. Simple ideas are the best. Offer the service for free and provide ads. i.e. mapping services onto google maps.

Overall this panel was out of date and although the basic ideas are possible they have all been done before. My advise to any one trying to set up a one man band web company is find a niche market, keep it simple and start of small.