… and quietly rake in some niche profits.

YouTube is quite a phenomenon, but as yet has not made a profit. Quite likely making $$ are the niche clones like YouPorn.com & Godtube.com

Homework:

1) Create a list of broad niches that have loyal followers (porn, religion, conspiracy, WWF)
2) Watch for when a general website becomes a hit
3) Clone it, niche it, $$ it

Aaron Goldman has found a topic for a blog that will never run out of material - he discusses URLs and whether they are good or bad. An example of bad is the funny SpeedOfArts.com, which could also spell “speedo farts”.

His rules on what makes a good or bad URL are worth paying attention to:

Dos

1. CapitalizeTheFirstLetterOfEachWord.

2. Whenever possible, use YourBrandName.com.

3. If .com is not available, use YourBrandName.net.

4. If .com and .net are taken, find a new brand name. Seriously.

5. Use YourSlogan.com when running an integrated media campaign.

6. Use subdomains when driving people deeper than your homepage — e.g. Product.YourBrandName.com.

Don’ts

1. Don’t include www. We know to go to the World Wide Web to find you.

2. Don’t include http://. If your audience isn’t Web-savvy enough to know where to type the URL, you shouldn’t have a Web site.

3. don’tusealllowercase (canyoureallytellwhereonewordendsandthenextbegins?)

4. DITTOFORALLUPPERCASE

5. No-hyphens/or slashes.

6. Don’t use acronyms, abbreviations, or numbers unless your brand is widely known as such.

7. Don’t bury your URL at the bottom of a billboard. I’m the only nerd driving around with a 4x zoom lens to find URLs.

I just came across http://www.workaholics4hire.com

Although they don’t state where their workers come from (presumably Estonia, India, Russia etc), it shouldn’t matter. What they offer is a means of reducing the tedium of your webmaster tasks, and therefore freeing up your time to be more creative…

We have compiled a team of some of the web’s hottest designers and scripting gurus to help you with a wide variety of webmastering tasks.

Our team can:

• Fix errant code
• Upgrade blog installations
• Make changes and tweaks
• Add scripts and interactivity
• Add and format content
• Create CSS driven site modifications
• Install web applications for you
• Install and fix opt in boxes
• Design or Re-Design any type of website
• And so much more…

Your “Webmaster on Call” is available for anything you need, but you’ll only be charged for the number of hours spent actually working on a task.

In actuality, you will only ever need to speak with one person…your own project manager. This person handles all the details for you so you only need to make one contact to have anything done. All work is supervised by the manager, helping you focus on your business rather than the technical details.

How it works…

You deposit $1,000 on retainer to lock in your Webmaster On Call account. The money is held in escrow until it is needed, and our webmasters continue to complete tasks for you (at your request) until the retainer is depleted. We’ll keep you up to date with reports that will include all account activity, and when your retainer is depleted, you simply add another $1,000 to your account.

We charge $25 per hour for all webmastering tasks.

If you are one clued-up, web-savvy, marketing-oriented chappy (or chappess) - there are several ways to make your mark on the world, and million$ in the process

1) Go alone
2) Go alone but hire others
3) Work for others

It seems to be that, if you are full of beans and talent, and a potential employer is on the verge, then a relationship is quite likely. And, when hired, you and a bunch of similar young studs (or studettes), are the factor that makes your company a success, well:

a) You will hopefuly have made lots of money from shares & options
b) You will have seen how it all works at corporate level
c) You’ll have become cocky enough to go solo

The folk behind these sites all started out at PayPal:

Facebook
Slide
Yelp
Digg
YouTube
LinkedIn
and more

Read about the PayPal Mafia at CNN

Apparantly the unbreakable encryption can be broken if Hushmail willingly hand over the key to the authorities:

 … it seems the Canadian company has been divulging keys to the American authorities.

The document describes the tracking of an anabolic steroid manufacturer who was being investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The document alleges that the majority of those engaged in the trade in anabolic steroids use Hushmail to communicate.

The DEA agents received three CDs of decrypted emails which contained decrypted emails for the targets of the investigation that had been decrypted as part of a mutual legal assistance treaty between the United States and Canada.

I’m only guessing the improvement. Up until this week, I have read emails and then clicked on the delete button at the bottom of the page. That button has now disappeared, forcing me to scroll back to the top to delete the email.

Unexpectedly, I am finding myself noticing the banner ads at the top of the page, like never before. Whoever thought of this at Microsoft deserves a promotion!

This is a pretty amazing way of understanding the user experience of your site - it records the pages they visit, the movements of their mouse, and how they fill in a form. This would be of special use to anyone using those mile-long sales pitches with lots of testimonials and benefits (and the price buried within a paragraph near the bottom). You’d soon learn if people just skip to the bottom and search for the price… RobotReplay is presently free!

BTW, it also records key clicks, and there are paid alternatives:

TapeFailure - $8 - $98/month (with a one week free trial).

ClickTale - Free - $99/month

Fair enough, it is Linux-based, but for surfing the web that’s about all you need - given the rise of the web-apps.
There’s no longer any excuse - get your wife/children/staff/parents online. I guarantee that when more of your crew are web-savvy, you will reap benefits and get to spend lots of time helping them learn how to use the thing!

This is kinda daft, but that’s ok once in a while:

1. “Who Represents” is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is http://www.whorepresents.com/

2 . Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at http://www.expertsexchange.com/

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at http://www.penisland.net/

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at http://www.therapistfinder.com/

5. There’s the Italian Power Generator company, http://www.powergenitalia.com/

6. And don’t forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales http://www.molestationnursery.com/

7. If you’re looking for IP computer software, there’s always http://www.ipanywhere.com/

8. The First Cumming Methodist Church Web site is http://www.cummingfirst.com/

9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web site, http://www.speedofart.com/

That’s revenue, not profit, because they are a not-for-profit entity. Their financial statement shows what a sensible, conservative operation they are, and I look forward to seeing what they will do with the tens of millions of dollars and convertible assets they now have.
This is a great example of how to create a successful business via giving away a product - FireFox. The revenue is mostly from Google, who pay them search royalties from when users search using the default search function. So to help FireFox stay popular, and force IE to keep improving, use that search box! Or buy a t-shirt.
Just because your business is non-profit, doesn’t mean you can’t pay yourself a good salary - although Mozilla don’t seem to be paying a fortune to any of their 90 programmers - they average $200K each, which is probably about right.

And remember, if you are non-profit, and do good not evil, many people will choose to use you over Microsoft et al