Making Money with an Internet Business

Twenty-five years ago, English teachers were decrying the death of the art of letter writing and its replacement by the telephone call. The good news is that the dire predictions appear to have been premature and that the art of interpersonal communications is enjoying a virtual renaissance thanks to electronic mail, perhaps the single most popular facet of the Internet. Based on statistics released by the National Science Foundation, over 4,000 e-mail messages are sent each second on the Internet. The oft-quoted 20,000,000 users number is based on their e-mail connectivity to the network; these days, it’s getting to the point where just about everyone is hooked up to the network in some fashion or other. Today, more than 145 countries are connected, and it’s a sure bet that once we meet up with extraterrestrial residents, they’ll be hooked in, too. Through Internet gateways, users from CompuServe, MCI Mail, GEnie, and other commercial networks are also “on the Net.”
For businesses, being able to connect with lots of people is a boon, but for many companies the greatest advantage to Internet e-mail is its low cost. Not only do you save on postage and printing compared to postal mailings, but by paying a monthly fee to an Internet access provider, you can send and receive all the e-mail you want without paying extra for messages or the time you spend online composing them. That’s a refreshing change from commercial networks where you pay by the hour or the byte. In fact, if you send a message to a colleague on CompuServe, the recipient must pay to receive your e-mail if it’s sent from the Internet.
The third advantage is universality. Through the Internet, you can send e-mail to people who use CompuServe, America Online, MCI Mail, AppleLink, eWorld, AT&T EasyLink, and other commercial networks even if you don’t have an account on that system. You can also swap mail with colleagues and friends connected to government, military, and university e-mail systems and even local computer bulletin boards. This means that you don’t have to pay fees to a dozen individual computer networks just to reach their subscribers or to log on and off each one every time you wanted to send a message to one of its users. Thanks to the Internet, sending mail electronically is faster and easier than carting a batch of company fliers to the post office.