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No, this is nothing racist. Or a scapegoat, as a matter of fact. But in times of recession, many people are looking for alternative ways of making money. Of course, the majority find themselves trying to Make Money Online.
Here’s the typical scenario: You buy some eBook online priced at $27, $47 or $97 (these are the best converting prices) promising you thousands can me earned online easily, with little or no effort. You finish reading the book, and starting signing up for Web Hosting, a domain and install WordPress (probably through affiliate links in the eBook) and place a few AdSense ads on your blog. You write a few blog posts, and give up. Where’s the little effort the eBook promised?
Blogging is hard. Seriously. Admit it. I’ll admit it’s hard.
You give up and wasted $250 on your hosting. Yes, some people can make thousands while they’re sleeping, but it does require (a lot of) effort, at least initially. In my case, I’ve made nothing for 9 months until my first AdSense cheque. Nowadays, I’ve made the same amount, if not more, in one month then I did in 9 months. Your income experiences geometric growth, and not a linear growth.
The great America Dream – this was the idea of opportunity of Italian immigrants in the 18th century, with the dream of jobs and money. The first glimpse of the American Dream for 8 million immigrants coming through Ellis Island was the Statue of Liberty – which represents freedom, liberty, justice and friendship. Did the Italian immigrants experience true freedom and justice? Not really.
The Californian Gold Rush is another great example of a false opportunity. Again, it’s the idea of copycats. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. People following others. Yes, the early gold miners (aka the 49-er’s) did find gold and got rich quick. But when the 300,000 people followed in their footsteps, the place was over saturated with gold miners. Most of the easily extracted gold (mainly by panning) was already collected by early gold miners. So, many often gained little (if anything at all) from the Gold Rush. Is this the real California Dream? I don’t think so.
So how does this relate to the Internet? Or being an Entrepreneur?
Look at Twitter. It’s an innovation in communication. Yet with all innovation comes the copycats. Look at Jaiku and Pownce, Twitter’s main competitors in 2008. Where are they now? Pownce is in the deadpool, and Jaiku is pretty much dead, except for the (small) Finnish population, where the founders are from. It’s now been sold to Google, whose interests are in Twitter, not Jaiku. After all, Google does have 42 Twitter accounts.
What about all those Facebook copies? Look at StudiVZ, a German Facebook clone. Facebook is now Germany’s biggest Social Network. In July Facebook had nearly 6.2 million unique users in Germany, by contrast StudiVZ had only 4.28 million uniques. On the contrast, Vkontakte.ru is still Russian’s biggest social network (it’s the 2nd most visited website in Russia), while Facebook is the 30th. Big difference? Yes, especially when Russia is the 9th biggest country by population size.
Conclusion
You need innovation to succeed. Copying some hot Web2.0 Social Network (or a trend) will get you no where. The same goes for Making Money Online. You can envy John Chow or Shoemoney, but it’ll get you no where. You need to be committed to what you’re doing. If not, you’re wasting you time. Shoemoney may make $400 for a tweet while I make $100 a tweet using Sponsored Tweets, it’s still a beginning. A beginning to a great success.
To your success,
Josh Lam
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You have greatly misrepresented the American Dream.
Take the story of Rosa Cassettari – according to Of the People: A History of the United States (Vol. 2: Since 1865) – who was an Italian immigrant, in 1884, to America. Rosa’s inital experiences included her being cheated, forced to ravel to Missouri (from New York) with no food, live in a tent upon arrival, give birth to a premature child alone in her cabin, deal with an abusive husband, and much else accounted for in her autobiography. Yet, “Rosa was impressed by many things about America. Poor people did not behave humbly in the presence of the rich, for example, and Rosa wore decent clothing and ate meat every day, things she could never do back in Europe.” This is the story so many immigrants know (Of the People, 481).
America is not the perfect country. We haven’t always treated everyone equal, given everyone the proper justice, or even lived up to everyone’s expectations. However, there is one thing that cannot be denied about America. It’s the reason more than 1.2 million people migrate to this country per a year. It is the American Dream. As James Truslow Adams describes, “[the] dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, also too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” While it’s true this hasn’t always been the case for every person, it has been subject to perfection over time.
You have misinterpreted this Dream as “jobs and money.” The Dream is about an opportunity offered, NOT success guaranteed. The Dream is not always about a gain, especially of money. False opportunity and failure are NOT the same thing, as you have portrayed.
You are correct that innovation is a requirement to succeed, but hard work is the backing to that success.
I think you make some clear points, but what Josh is getting at here is that the American Dream isn’t what it seems. He even sites examples that plainly show this. The american dream, all the opportunity that lies before us is touted as what everyone should strive for, it’s cloudy and murky and misrepresented today. Sure there’s opportunity in America, but it’s not in corporate jobs, slaving for retirement, especially when that certainty is slowly dying…it’s found with innovation, hardwork, thinking outside the box and changing the game. Just like Rosa.
Good realization in here Josh. Hilarious breakdown of the buying an ebook, clicking affiliate links and then being frustrated…I saw through this route and have avoided such a frustration, but continue to chip away at this new economy rising by doing what you’re doing…hard work, trial and error, and thinking up new avenues to apply what you’re good at.