As a young TV reporter I was still writing on a manual typewriter and working for someone else. I never could have dreamed of the kinds of opportunities the Internet would open up in the future - opportunities that are open to everyone today.

I tell them that it is my belief that there are not only many great opportunities out there, there are probably more of them now than at any time in history. That belief was underscored for me when I started thinking about a note Tim Davids posted on a private domain forum this morning commenting on my last two Lowdown posts (which are below today's post). Davids noted the vast technology change spanned by those two posts - one about the new iPhone and the other about the declining fortunes of the radio business (where I started my media career as an 18-year-old broadcaster). I replied to Tim's post with the following comment:

"This has definitely been a fascinating time in history to be alive. The degree to which technology and the way media is delivered and received has changed so dramatically 

in such a short period of time that it is truly mind boggling. When I finished broadcasting school (a few months after that photo in the August 25 post was taken) I went to work for a little 500-watt AM radio station in my home town. The owners had spent half a million dollars putting the station on the air and its coverage area only went out a few miles in a very small town (with inflation factored in, a half million then would be the equivalent of around $2 million today).

Now any kid can register a domain for under $10, download some free software and broadcast to the entire world with virtually no overhead. When I started out you had to get past the gatekeepers (station owners, publishers, general managers, etc) to work at something you loved to do. Many talented people never made it through the gauntlet and gave up. Today there are no gatekeepers. With respect to media, any one can own their own online newspaper, magazine, radio station or TV station and distribute their content globally. If you have a talent for what you do, you also get to keep all of the revenues instead of working for someone else who determines the ceiling on what you can earn. It's a wonderful world we live in now. Despite the current economic trouble - today's opportunities outstrip anything that could have been imagined before the Internet."

Another member of that forum, Owen Frager, told me that, in an email to his clients yesterday, he had circulated a link to a story called 9 Ways You Can Take Advantage of This Terrible Economy. One of his readers took him to task for that, claiming that one of the items on the list "Start a New Company" was horrible advice given the current economy. 

The reader told Frager "I hope nobody else thinks that a shrinking market, companies closing down, means you jump and start a new company. Companies closing means demand is down so far there aren't enough sales to keep more doors open. I write about economics and have been doing so for more than two decades. That section in the newsletter about starting a company was very off base and makes me shake my head."

Owen Frager

Frager was able to cite an example of his own. "With cheap hosting, shared photo drives, Saas, and third party alliances, web business is very efficient - you don't need the millions your 

Opportunity is knocking and the 
whole world is waiting on the 
other side of the door.

employer did to start it. If I could build GrandNames into a 100 page site with a $79 WordPress template with my own two hands, and add a social community (including video presentations interactive by guest speakers) in seconds after reading about NING in the Wall Street Journal - all for FREE - anyone can do it," Frager wrote.

That's the beauty of the world we live in today. Anyone can do it. Sure, many new online businesses will fail, just as they do in the real world. But when you are only out $79 instead of your life savings you can try over and over again until you find a formula that works. I believe we have all been given specific gifts or talents. If you can identify and apply your particular talents to the unique global delivery 

platform that the Internet provides you have a chance to seize an opportunity and control your own future in a way that previous generations could never have dreamed of.