Internet Version 4.0

I don’t know exactly how long you’ve been  involved in Internet marketing.

But unless you’ve been in the game since at least 1993, you may not be aware of this little known fact…

There have actually been THREE completely different versions of the Internet.

The reason this is important is that we’re right on the verge of the birth of the fourth Internet:

Internet Version 4.0.

And here’s why this is important to you:

Every time the Internet goes through one its major changes, fortunes are made – and fortunes are lost.

In the Internet world, people who get too ‘comfortable’ with the way things are often get wiped out.

Here’s what I mean…

Internet Version 1.0 was the old computer bulletin board world.  It was text only and clunky as hell.

Money was being made hand over fist in those days… by the guys who sold computer bulletin board software.

I knew a lot of those guys personally.

I met them when I attended and gave talks at ONE BBSCON, the old computer bulletin board convention that used to attract 2,000 people at a clip.

They had money coming out of their ears.

They’re now all out of business.

Internet Version 2.0 was ushered into being by Marc Andreessen and Netscape. They were the people who made it possible to put color pictures on the Internet and made it ‘point and click’ simple for people to surf and fill out forms.

I sponsored and organized the first conference on the subject of the web as a marketing medium with Marc back in 1994.

The web changed everything.

Suddenly what had been a hobby for nerds and geeks became a business and Silicon Valley and Wall Street piled on.

Instant net millionaires – and even billionaires – became commonplace.  The Internet industry was hotter than hot – until the dot com crash.

Then came Internet Version 3.0.

Since 1993, I’ve been teaching that the Internet was a direct marketing medium.

Quite frankly, I felt like an idiot because for the longest time no one – even good friends in the Internet business – listened.

But I stuck to my guns.

In 2000, not long after Overture started (it was called ‘Go To’ then), the first pay-per-click search engine came on the scene. I sponsored the first serious trainings on how to use pay-per-click intelligently.

Two years later, when Google AdWords started, I encouraged then-student, Perry Marshall, to systemize and share his insights into the unique mechanics of the Google approach to pay-per-click.

The System – and trainings I offered before the System – were the very first place on earth anyone talked about  how to combine the new world of pay-per-click with the tried and true practices of direct marketing.

Using pay-per-click not only for generating traffic, but also for researching marketings, testing ad campaigns, and heck, building entire businesses from scratch…

That all started – from an educational point of view – at the System.

Now, of course, teaching this stuff is as common as grass, but go back to 2000, even 2002 and you won’t find any of it before the System.

And thus Internet Version 3.0 was born.

The raw, but uneducated excitement that characterized Internet 2.0 was clarified and focused like a laser beam by combining it with the power of classic direct marketing principles.

And now: Internet Version 4.0.

Quite frankly, I wish time would slow down a bit.

I’ve now been through and in some cases actively participated in shaping not one but three different major Internet  revolutions in the short space of just eleven years.

Personally, in some ways it would be nice to coast a little.

Nice, but not to smart.

Not smart for me – and not smart for you.

The millionaire BBS software guys were wiped out by Internet Version 2.0.

Totally wiped out.

The ‘blue sky’ dot com guys – who at their height were making money faster than the printing presses could crank it out –  were wiped out by Internet Version 3.0.

Totally wiped out.

Like it or not, Internet Version 4.0 is coming and it’s coming a lot sooner than most people realize.

If Internet Version 2.0 wiped out Internet Version 1.0… and Internet Version 3.0 wiped out Internet Version 2.0…

What do you think Internet Version 3.0 is going to do to the Internet as we know it today?

Here’s some good news…

Internet Version 4.0 will not wipe you out completely.

But it has the potential to exile your business to the backwaters of your marketplace.

What is Internet Version 4.0?

It’s a lot of things, but a big piece of the puzzle is video.

We’ve had video on the Internet for years now, but delivery has been clunky.

Those days are over.

And when video hits the Internet for real it’s going to be a whole new ball game.

How so?

Given a choice between reading and ‘watching TV’, people are going to do exactly what they do now.

They’re going to hit the play button.

If you don’t have a play button, you’re not going to be playing in Internet Version 4.0. It’s that simple.

To help you find your way in this fast emerging new world, I’ve started a newsletter all about using video to market on the Internet.

Click here to get a free sample subscription:

http://www.thesystemseminar.com/video

– Ken McCarthy

P.S. For over 25 years I’ve been sharing the simple but powerful things that matter in business with my clients.

If you’d like direction for your business that will work today, tomorrow and twenty years from now, visit us at the System Club.