Your Fingertips and a Phone-line, perhaps.

by: Seamus Dolly

Never, before the Internet and its components, did a regular person have such cheap access to such a wide database. With it comes an opportunity. To download music or play games, if that is what you want, but never, could a person rapidly gain access to information! Never could a person disperse information to such a degree, either. With it comes a freedom to express ideas, creations, or business concepts, which held previous generations captive to their true abilities and potential. You can be certain that many had intelligence, imagination and foresight, but lacked the resources and framework to do what is now, commonplace. The thing is though, that while many ideas are indeed commonplace, simple variations can become some workable, feasible and rewarding. If you have a spark of imagination, you should be able to find an angle. Bizarre or conventional, outrageous or ordinary, something searchable should lend itself to inspiration. While some get comfortable with modern cultures, labour costs will increase and fewer things are cheaper. To download a webpage or send 500,000 e-mails, the value is exceptional and unlikely to spiral. In this alone, there has to be potential. General research, which took time and discipline, can be done in a short time. Search engines, which find search engines and almost anything else, will speedily return many results. Indeed, lots of specific information can be “mined” as well. It is a shame where some don’t realise its true power. Get what was once a stupid idea, manipulate it into a modern context, and see what can happen to it. For the market is global and interest in any concept, is no longer limited to a local audience. What that means is that your community figure-head, tribal leader (or whatever your hierarchial structure), neither have to approve, condemn or otherwise comment on your business if that is what you want. It is easier, much easier to find/target like-minded individuals, than it ever was. Though some social benefits are lost, it has become extremely simple to communicate with others on earthly opposites, and the time/speed difference is almost negligible. Indeed, remote tooling manipulation is common enough, whether medical or industrial. More opportunities! The software, hardware, and implied support mechanisms for this existing but growing market might titillate the imagination, and spawn many ventures. All growth will never only be in the technological market. With all its “finery”, people still need paper for hard copy solutions, and blank paper is not much of a record. Pigments and paper are complimentary. Roads will still have to be dug, and people still have to be fed. Service sectors are growing. So if you are an ambitious waiter/waitress or see the potential of excavation equipment, then the Internet can compliment it, as paper to pigment. “While an employer will leverage his employees, and the rich will leverage their money, the rest can leverage their access to information, to enhance or change their position”.