One Million Dollars. For many of us this sounds like a lot of money. However is the concept of this being outdated valid? Does the word millionaire still bring thoughts of luxuries, excessive lifestyles, fast cars, fine dining and waterfront living. Or do we have to “up” it a level where no longer does a million dollars put you on the level of society’s elite.

I’m going to list the things one million dollars will buy you today:

• 1/4 New York Apartment
• 1/2 season in the GP2 racing championship
• A few good diamonds
• 5 yrs off
• 1/2 Bugatti Veyron
• Medium sized yacht
• 1/100 of the way to creating GTA IV
• An investment property (then the value will plummet and you no longer have close to 1million!)
• 2-3 Yrs Medical Insurance (As a practicing Doctor)
• 200,000 McDonald’s Happy Meals
• 500,000 Mars Bars
• 10,000 bottles of Moet
• 1 Law suit
• You business overdraft (Interest only!)

Its a pretty strange list but you’d expect a strange list when your wondering how to spend a million bucks. But after you write the list the only things you can buy substantially are smaller ticket items (ie the Mars Bars). The stuff your teen dreams are made of, or those investment and work essentials, are no longer the calling cards of those who have stumbled upon that magic million.

Yes one million dollars is a crap load of money but the bar has been raised. To shake the hand of a millionaire isn’t what it once was.

It’s an awfully kept secret that the majority of good Internet Marketers are from North America. It’s not surprising really as the region is to me, the entrepreneurial nexus of the world. A lot of the good stuff comes from there (except cars.. why is it when there are 4 wheels and an engine they go all loopy?). Silicon Valley houses some of the greatest start-ups with investors willing to pump millions of dollars to support the dreams of budding entrepreneurs.

A lot of what I do everyday is a result of entrepreneurial insight from the region. I Jump on my computer (DELL, Austin TX, USA 1984) check my emails using Outlook (Microsoft 1975 Albuquerque, New Mexico), search using the Google search engine (Menlo Park, California, 1998), visit the Shoemoney Blog (Lincoln, Nebraska) using the Firefox browser (Again North America) and then when I feel thirsty I grab a Coke (take a guess?).

This isn’t surprising or a revolutionary insight by any means but I think its important to note the effect this has had on marketers. I’m an Australian but when I write a post or release a product, I know that the majority of the people making use of what I have to offer will be from the US. When I was writing my eBook I had an extremely enlightening recommendation from one of my reviewers who questioned my use of Kilograms instead of Pounds. I used the word ‘bootstrap’ in the title instead of ’shoestring’.

Tailoring my approach to suit the people most likely to follow me is now second nature to me. Whenever I’m asked to fill out contact details online, I instinctively put a +61 in front of the number. I even get excited when I purchase something and then realize that its in Australian dollars, thinking I’m getting a bargain because I’m so used to paying in US (about 80USc for $1AUS).

However something happened the other day which I never thought would, I felt I had an accent in my own mother tongue. I was creating a screen capture video and realized how ‘different’ I sounded to all the other Internet Marketers. I’m so used to hearing marketers from the US speaking in Audio and Video that my voice, even to me, sounded quite alien. Even after a few attempts I was considering a voice over! Obviously I didn’t take this route as I understand the importance of using myself as my brand so this was simply not an option, but the fact that the thought came to mind really made me think.

So I’m wondering whether other non US marketers have felt this sense of Internet Marketing alientation. The Internet is such a global medium yet there is a prominant ‘language’ in the IM world. Not that it bothers me at all, its just an observation which I find intriguing.

So Facebook have just released their vanity URL feature. So now instead of having some elaborate confusing URL, you can simply choose yours username. For example I chose just my surname (I got in early) so my username is www.facebook.com/bakhos.

The reason I chose this was that I wanted my full name, when searched, to link to this blog in the search engines, not my Facebook page.

I can imagine all the people taking all the “make money online”, “Internet business” names and it will become extremely transparent after a little while. The shame is that now when people do populat internet marketing searches we are going to end up with Spam pages or link farms via Facebook. I think we see enough of these on the net already but lets see what happens.

Any reasons why you have chosen the username you did?

If you havn’t got your username and are already a member of Facebook then I recommend that you do, mainly so you don’t end up suffering from some opportunistic creep stealing your name. You can do it by visiting Facebook Username page.

To check out these video squeeze pages click the link below:

Hot Video Squeeze Templates

There is a common saying that all marketers are liars. Now you can make your own judgment about that but I thought I’d throw a spanner in the works today.

I saw possibly one of the most amazingly honest marketing attempts in a while. Brute honesty is some what non-existent but there is always something that takes you by surprise.

Check out this listing for an old washing machine.

And now look how much this peice of junk is going for. There may still be room for some honest marketing yet!

So where to for these money churning start-ups? I’ve never quite understood the business models of some websites and I’ve openly stated that. I’m talking Digg, Reddit, Twitter etc. They are backed by big-in-the-pocket investment firms, VC’s and angel investors yet no one bothers to stop and say, how are we going to make money?

Twitter is now trying to find a way to make money. Interestingly enough they have no clue how they are going to do it. They have already stated that advertising is not an option they are currently considering for their revenue model so where will it lie?

My take on this is simple: why start a business with no revenue model whatsoever? No you might think that this is quite a narrow minded view but the main reason for thinking like this probably isn’t what you think.

Let’s use a few examples (I love my examples!) and take Facebook for example. Now Facebook has always had some type of advertising on the site and I remember the first type of ads were tower banner ads. That was pretty much it and probably didn’t make them a lot of money. But it set a precedence. Users were comfortable with the advertising. So ramping up the ads into a full blown network, although not the most successful, didn’t put too many people off because it has always been there.

Same with Google. I’ve always known Google with two columns, one for organic and the other for sponsored links. Of course at some stage it was just organic search but the ads were put in quite early on, showing a defined revenue model and the users happily accepted it.

On the other hand you’ve got other start-ups like Twitter. These guys have built a massive following and have in no way monetised it. The negative effect isn’t in the fact that they are not making money now but the inability to easily implement a revenue model in the future. Taking the earlier examples, their revenue models crept up early on and didn’t cause to much of a flutter among the users. However Twitter has always been a free, non ad-obtrusive service with a host of loyal followers. Throw in a need to charge for anything and their loyal base will be kicking and screaming. This is their own doing.. they dug a hole from day one.

You can find clear evidence of this when reports came through of an agreement to form Twitter TV and Twitter’s most famous user Ashton Kutcher, made the following statement: “Wow I hope this isn’t true. I really don’t like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus”. This shows any sign of Twitter trying to profit from their micro-blogging service, they are shunned by their most loyal and popular “Tweeters”. I can’t help but feel that if they implemented some type of revenue strategy from day 1… it may not have been so difficult.

I am absolutely astounded at the difference between the really good online marketers and the not so good ones. What I’m astounded at is that the difference is not as obvious as you may expect. You’d think some have flashy videos, great graphics and unique designs but it just doesn’t work like that.

I’ve been checking out some of the best online marketers and trying to figure out what makes them so successful. I have even gone to the extent of screen capturing their sales pages to try and understand what it is. It’s hard to compare my own because I become subjective so I feel it’s best to use others and take a completely objective point of view. The truth is in the detail and the delivery. It’s not much really and can range from a better fonts, bolder boarders, use of keywords and their uncanny ability to make you like them. This is probably one of the biggest marketing factors that most people are yet to fully understand and that is that the real good internet marketers are hard to hate although you think you should.  What do you think about the Virgin brand? I don’t know too many people that hate it because the brand is just so likable.. now what makes the Internet Marketing industry any different?

Then on the other end of the scale you’ve got the guys who have scam written all over them and the sad thing is, these are probably legitimate online marketers. However because they used a few over-zealous words, a dodgy squeeze page and maybe a few too many bells and whistles they are dismissed and placed in the Internet Marketers dregs pile. Think of any telco and compared it to Vodafone. They might both offer great product but for me personally, I struggle to hate Vodafone because of how to hold and promote their brand.

It’s sad really, a few choice words and a different colour can be the difference between being successful in this industry and being an ‘also tried’. My advice, and I can’t believe I’m saying this… find the good guys, observe, analyse and implement for a solid foundation. Only then may people tolerate your re-invention of the wheel and if not, you’ve still got a fat pocket to survive off until your next charge but remember wash up before you go out again.