Mark Bridge says that a computer and phone is all you need to join the internet entrepreneurs.
Times Online:
You may use the internet to save money, but are you also logging on to make it? Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics, a new book, explains that the web has forced a rapid ‘democratisation of wealth creation’.
Anyone with a PC, a phone line and an idea has access to a vast market at communities such as eBay and the blogosphere. Mr Tapscott is concerned that too many users think of the internet as a place where content is created and shared free – for example, short films posted on YouTube, or contributions to Wikipedia.
‘People have a false understanding that this is about a volunteer economy,’ he says. ‘It is not. We look at people who are making money.’
His book kicks off with the story of Goldcorp. In March 2000 the struggling Canadian goldmining venture published geological information of its landholdings online and offered a share of a $575,000 prize fund to anyone who could use this to pinpoint gold. Within weeks hundreds of people, from retired scientists to students, had submitted well-reasoned entries. A remarkable 80 per cent of the 110 new sites identified produced bullion and the company’s value rocketed from $100 million to $9 billion. More.
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