Tell the world - did you make love this morning?

Melbourne Herald Sun 24th October, 2009

Did you make love this morning? Did your neighbour? Maybe the answer is on your computer. Visit the web site ijustmadelove.com and you’ll find thousands of people from Vladivostok to Antarctica, Woi Woi to Warsaw proudly proclaiming the night’s score. As I write this the site’s counter has clicked off over 50,000 reports.

This is as graphic a demonstration as I can find of how to start a new business venture on the Web. A lateral combination of imagination, psychology, technology and entrepreneurship.

Already the site is carrying the usual “call me” phone sex ads, but with the rate it is growing, before long the big advertisers will take over. After all it’s aimed at the right market to make it perfect for beer ads, confectionery, movies, not to mention contraception. No, whoever came up with the idea, I think you’re looking at another overnight millionaire.

Think it’s all too flimsy? Look at Twitter. The first tweet went out in March 2006. Just this month it was valued at $US1 billion. And it still doesn’t have a business plan - nobody has yet figured out how to make a cent out of it. However if you had any of Twitter’s original shares, they have increased in value 240,000 per cent.

But there’s good reason too. In Britain it was recently announced that on-line advertising had overtaken TV, in billings, for the first time. People are positioning themselves in a rapidly changing world. This has been pushed along by the global recession. Where advertisers in the US and UK have cut down on their TV spend, they have looked for cheaper alternatives and found that on-line was effective.

So there is a continuous hunt to find the next big thing and we are seeing lots of smart new businesses on the internet.

An example I found was TailoredMusic.com. This is a company formed by a group of musicians in Canada. They will write and record your very own love song, for around $200. They provide a number of ready-written songs and you can edit in the person’s name, an event, a sentiment - and it will all be professionally recorded and emailed to you as an MP3.

Imagine how delighted your sweetheart would be if at your favourite restaurant you plugged a speaker on your iPod, fell to your knees and played a love song especially for her! Well, you get the idea - it’s not for everyone.

The enterprise bug has even bitten closer to home. My wife and stepdaughter have been planning, writing and spending hours with web designers all year and early next month will launch ALittleColour.com, a colour consultant site for children. Sort of mini Trinny and kinder Suzannah.

You email or Facebook some photos of your little darlings which will be professionally analysed, and in return you’ll be given a report on the child’s colouring, a swatch book of their ideal colours, and advice on clothes and dressing. All for under $90. They’re highly excited as the launch approaches, all I ask is that when the millions start rolling in they don’t forget old Dad in the corner here.

Of course of the millions of new enterprises being launched every year, only a very small percentage will hit the jackpot. But a lot of them will supply a steady income flow for the operators. There’s the advantage of a world-wide catchment area for your customers. But the disadvantage of a world-wide source of competitors. So often the winner is the one who thought of it first, launched it big, and hung on for dear life.

Now, what was it you were doing this morning?

ray@ebeatty.com