What do you think is the best part about the internet? The direct value addition that the internet gives me is that it’s free. So, I can conduct my research, at my own pace from almost an unlimited number of sites. Unlike television, internet gives me an extremely wide array as well to read, research, cross search and get to the bottom of the story. However, the immediate shortcoming of web 2.0 is that almost every site talks about the same thing. So it’s like a large bazaar, where all the traders have pre-negotiated the content and quality, so that there isn’t too much of a difference.  Personally, I think that’s where lies the biggest opportunity for an internet writer or a content based organization.

Internet is a word based medium, period. But how many of us think of it that way. The videos on youtube.com have to be searched through words, in the same way the images at flickr.com have to be searched through words as well and pretty much everything that’s there on the internet has to be searched through words. And there lies the opportunity. The simple game of Keywords and Search.

I was doing a campus recruitment drive when someone from the crowd asked me about the future of internet writing. And my answer was, “everything that you see on the net is being written by someone, in fact millions of ‘someones’. At the dawn of this millenium, internet writing in India came to be seen as means to earn some smart money or extra income for home based individuals.  However, that bit of reality is a complete goner. Now there is an absolute need for writers who can influence, create opinions, give direction to a thought or just provide niche information.

Everything that we see around is ultimately looking to go online. Shopping, grocery, holidays and banking already have a strong online presence. However, the future belongs to online physicians, online drugstores, online food, online opticians, online credits (instead of money) and of course online writers.