(Initially written January 2010 but unpublished. Rewritten November 2010.)

I’m sitting here on a Friday night at time of writing, and I’m wondering to myself where everything is going. – By that, I mean that I’m thinking about the future in general: My future, other people’s future, technology’s future, and of course linked to that the future of the internet.

Note: This is a rather long post; so get ready for a reading sensation: –

Unlike a lot of people I don’t normally use a Friday night to go out and party. – To be honest I just don’t see the point in it unless there’s something to party about. Friend’s birthdays, festivals, etc are all a great time to enjoy the moment; but needlessly and wantonly going out for the sake of going out just isn’t my scene: I see it as escapism, which it probably is, and there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with that to a degree. Everyone needs to take a break and let their hair down once in a while; but I tend to do things for a reason rather than just on a hunch alone, or if the mood takes me. – Anyway; that’s just me. Others see things completely differently, no doubt.

It’s with the above in mind to a certain extent that I’m thinking about the future. I want to be able to decide my own future.

“Impossible!” I hear people cry. “That’s just a bit too far fetched Sharron! – I mean; come on girl; you have no idea whether you’re going to live to 115 years old or die next week; any more than anyone else has.”

Whilst that’s true that’s a case of only seeing the bigger picture though; whilst ignoring any detail: – But OK let me start gunning from there: Personally I’m hoping for something more on the side of the first option. – To get there I’ll need to pay attention to the detail though: the structure of those 115 years.

Quite obviously I’ll not be as physically agile as I am now at that age; although I might well still be blogging if I make it that far with a sound mind and the ability to type. There are a number of factors that are going to do their best to prevent me from getting there unless I take action with regard to them though.

The first is poverty: If I’m stony broke all my life there’s very little chance that I’m going to make it that far due to factors such as poor nutrition, lack of adequate healthcare, etc. – So I need to be able to generate some financial input rather than simply relying on state handouts of whatever type are available; most of which are usually no more than an old-age subsistence-allowance anyway.

Another is staying active: Whilst I’m limited to a certain extent by a disability, (Not a lot of you knew that; but I’m not after sympathy so why mention it unnecessarily?) I still have to stay as a active as possible physically, but not only physically though: If I could fail on entry to British Mensa by only a single point in 1993 then I’m buggered if I’m going to let my mind decay in my old age, or even my middle-age come to that. Blogging is a great way to avoid that too; or at least one of a number of ways to avoid it.

And technology is no doubt going to play a vital part in everything mentioned above too: No I didn’t mean spending my old age in an oxygen tent, or upgraded to a cyberman either. Technology is going to boom; no doubt about it. I expect the next 200 years are going to see massive technological innovation and advancement. Maybe I won’t be lucky enough to benefit from all of it myself; but I can see humans living for several thousand years in the not too distant future. The colonisation and terraforming of Mars can’t be that far off either. Your children’s children might even be a part of the project. (How they’re gonna counteract the effects of the solar wind gradually dissipating the atmosphere into space though is anyone’s guess.)

What about the more immediate future though? Where’s our present technology leading us to? Well I see it this way: There’s another revolution coming; a socio-technological revolution, and it’s already stirring now.

You see; the internet, even though it’s a brand new thing in the course of human technological evolution, has already been noted as to its potential uses. It’s my belief that the technologies founded from and based upon the internet are going to join us all together as one people on one planet 8in the future; and as such that means that it’ll account for at least 90% of communications of a social. political, and economic nature. – That means that most business is going to be transacted via the internet.

As with the previous business models of the 20th and early 21st Centuries, there are going to be winners and there are going to be losers in all aspects of this; but particularly with regard to business.

Many newspapers and businesses today are taking their previous or existing business-models and are applying them straight to internet business. the problem that they’re finding is that that policy just doesn’t work, and so they make the excuse that it’s the internet that doesn’t work; when in fact it’s the way that they are using the internet for business that doesn’t work.

So what does work then; if the established business model doesn’t?

Right; I’m going into the technology of blogging again from now onwards in this article; so you old school fix-your—computer-and- make-it-work-perfectly-only people be warned. But do read on if you dare because you might learn something new.

Look at it this way; blogs attract eyeballs, and popular and well-marketed blogs attract the most eyeballs. You’re reading a blog right now: Kkomp.com- Beyond. OK the name sucks, I’ll admit that; but people still like to read it. It has a personal brand; a number of things identify it. – The sucky name being just one of them. All in all it gets reasonably well-marketed, and has a reasonable following and a reasonable number of readers. It’s been going for over 2 years, and has become rather well known.

The fact of the matter is that as time goes by more and more people and businesses are going to be turning to blogging for publicity.

A blog by the local rag with the same name as the local rag is going to pull a larger following quicker, because it’s an established name, so when the newspapers finally all catch on to this online thing, as a lot of them already have, they’re going to make a lot of competition for eyeballs, as are established high-street chains, etc.

Eyeballs/visitors alone don’t make a decent blog though. Like it or not; whichever way you look at it, a blog costs money. – You have to pay for the domain, the server, the general maintenance, etc; and if you’re marketing a’la affiliate style too, then you have to pay for the affiliate software, the commissions, etc, etc.

But the equation eyeballs/traffic = visitors = certain proportion of sales is so old school, so Web 1.0. Whilst it’s true to some extent, it only works if you’re financing the blog thru banner ads, (Which I’ve already told you in a previous article doesn’t work in the case of this blog.) To make any decent income from banner ads, even to make the blog self-financing, requires mega-traffic. If every 1 in 200 people clicks one of 10 banner ads and 1 in 10 who click buy the product, then you’re going to need 2000 visitors to make one sale and gain a commission of anywhere between a pound and 100 pounds. In other words to keep this blog running with banner ads alone I’d need 300 visitors a day constantly, as well as to have a blog lit up with banner ads like Times Square. – But I don’t want a blog that looks like Times Square though; because if it did then I’d get less visitors, because nobody wants to visit a blog full of nothing but mainly advertisments. – Are you starting to see a vicious circle emerging here? To have a blog that makes even enough money to finance itself then; better marketing is called for.

I’m going to cut straight to the chase here: Most internet marketers suck at blogging, and most bloggers suck at internet marketing. But there is a way – Heck wherever there is a will there is a way.

You could spend years and an untold amount of research/product funds discovering it for yourself – but why bother with that when it’s already been done?

If you want to be able to get the most out of the internet in the future then you are going to have to start a blog at some point. – Fact. – It’s unavoidable at some point in time. If you want that blog to not be a drain on your resources and to actually be read rather than just sitting there getting 1 visitor a week then you are going to need to know how to market it properly. – Fact. You want a blog that makes you money right; rather than a blog that costs you money

This is the online technology of the future. This is how you’re going to get the most and the best from the internet in times to come. It doesn’t matter that much if your computer’s not optimised to 101% efficiency for this kind of technology, although that may help a bit: What matters is that you’re ready for it when you suddenly find yourself in the midst of it and lost in it.

At this point it seems quite obvious that to tell you everything else that I want to tell you I’ll need to write absolutely reams and reams of material, including and supplemental to slideshows, videos, webcasts, Q&A sessions, personal training… hours and hours worth of quality material. – But the good news is that I don’t have to because it’s already been done. – You knew that this was building up to something; and here is the something: It’s called BlogMasters Course, and it’s from internet marketing and blogging expert David Risley.
‘Want to know more about this course? – Keep watching this space – because it’s coming soon; and I will probably be advertising it right here on this blog. Believe me it is too good to miss. – I’ve completed the course; so you’re hearing it from someone who’s well in the know.

Yes I’m warming you up for a sales-drive: You guessed right. This product works and it is fantastic quality and value; which is why I’m telling you about it in advance of the official pre-launch even. As I said; keep watching this space for more…