erred to us locally?

Is the Internet a Safe Place to Find Services?

More and more people are looking to the Internet to find local businesses. There are over one billion online searches a month for local information. In other words, about 20% of searches online are for local info. It is safe to assume that much of this searching is for local business people. My wife and I found an excellent home inspector to take a look at a home purchase we made. This person was an engineer and did an outstanding inspection of our home before we purchased it.

He gave us great structural advice about things that needed to be done in the home before we bought it. The inspec

The reality is that the Internet has two faces. On one hand, we hear about the medium that is generating one trillion dollars in commerce and both online and off. On the other hand, we hear and see images of a marketplace with no protection for Internet users.

Much of this diversity in images is fueled by traditional media's love-hate relationship with the Internet. Until recently, traditional media has lost a lot of advertising dollars to the Internet. So much so, that major TV, radio and print publications have purchased online properties to reclaim some of their lost revenue and expand into new media. Examples of this would be Fox Media buying MySpace.com or the New York Times buying About.com.

Traditional Media Driving Sensational Stories about the Internet

From another vantage point, media thrives on juicy stories and the Internet, with its wide reach, provide plenty of sensational topics. Media loves to carry stories of major Internet scams, hacker attacks, or criminals using online communications as an unregulated place to rip-off the public. These types of stories receive a lot of press despite the fact that these things occur in less than five percent of the activity on the Internet.

The other type of story constantly reported is the overnight rags-to-riches Internet business tycoon who started a web site or application in their garage and sells their creation to a big Internet company for millions or billions of dollars. With these diverse types of images of what is possible on the Internet, how are regular folks like you and me to determine how to safely use the Internet?

The Internet allows us access to limitless information in which to do background research on products before we make purchases. Over sixty percent of car sales in the real world are first researched on the Internet. Real estate is increasingly being first found on the Internet and later purchased offline to the tune of over fifty billion dollars a year! This is because the Internet allows us to find the products and services we desire from the comfort of our homes and far more efficiently than the other modes of traditional media.

All this background information is great, but is the Internet a safe place to do business? Despite all the negative information we may get about the Internet, eCommerce is a booming industry that generates over three hundred million dollars a year. But what about finding people to do more personalized business transactions like providing us with professional services. Can we find a reliable person to repair our car, fix our financial situation, clear up our credit, or remodel our house, or should we only do business with professionals referred to us locally?

Is the Internet a Safe Place to Find Services?

More and more people are looking to the Internet to find local businesses. There are over one billion online searches a month for local information. In other words, about 20% of searches online are for local info. It is safe to assume that much of this searching is for local business people. My wife and I found an excellent home inspector to take a look at a home purchase we made. This person was an engineer and did an outstanding inspection of our home before we purchased it.

He gave us great structural advice about things that needed to be done in the home before we bought it. The inspect

w York Times buying About.com.

Traditional Media Driving Sensational Stories about the Internet

From another vantage point, media thrives on juicy stories and the Internet, with its wide reach, provide plenty of sensational topics. Media loves to carry stories of major Internet scams, hacker attacks, or criminals using online communications as an unregulated place to rip-off the public. These types of stories receive a lot of press despite the fact that these things occur in less than five percent of the activity on the Internet.

The other type of story constantly reported is the overnight rags-to-riches Internet business tycoon who started a web site or application in their garage and sells their creation to a big Internet company for millions or billions of dollars. With these diverse types of images of what is possible on the Internet, how are regular folks like you and me to determine how to safely use the Internet?

The Internet allows us access to limitless information in which to do background research on products before we make purchases. Over sixty percent of car sales in the real world are first researched on the Internet. Real estate is increasingly being first found on the Internet and later purchased offline to the tune of over fifty billion dollars a year! This is because the Internet allows us to find the products and services we desire from the comfort of our homes and far more efficiently than the other modes of traditional media.

All this background information is great, but is the Internet a safe place to do business? Despite all the negative information we may get about the Internet, eCommerce is a booming industry that generates over three hundred million dollars a year. But what about finding people to do more personalized business transactions like providing us with professional services. Can we find a reliable person to repair our car, fix our financial situation, clear up our credit, or remodel our house, or should we only do business with professionals referred to us locally?

Is the Internet a Safe Place to Find Services?

More and more people are looking to the Internet to find local businesses. There are over one billion online searches a month for local information. In other words, about 20% of searches online are for local info. It is safe to assume that much of this searching is for local business people. My wife and I found an excellent home inspector to take a look at a home purchase we made. This person was an engineer and did an outstanding inspection of our home before we purchased it.

He gave us great structural advice about things that needed to be done in the home before we bought it. The inspec

application in their garage and sells their creation to a big Internet company for millions or billions of dollars. With these diverse types of images of what is possible on the Internet, how are regular folks like you and me to determine how to safely use the Internet?

The Internet allows us access to limitless information in which to do background research on products before we make purchases. Over sixty percent of car sales in the real world are first researched on the Internet. Real estate is increasingly being first found on the Internet and later purchased offline to the tune of over fifty billion dollars a year! This is because the Internet allows us to find the products and services we desire from the comfort of our homes and far more efficiently than the other modes of traditional media.

All this background information is great, but is the Internet a safe place to do business? Despite all the negative information we may get about the Internet, eCommerce is a booming industry that generates over three hundred million dollars a year. But what about finding people to do more personalized business transactions like providing us with professional services. Can we find a reliable person to repair our car, fix our financial situation, clear up our credit, or remodel our house, or should we only do business with professionals referred to us locally?

Is the Internet a Safe Place to Find Services?

More and more people are looking to the Internet to find local businesses. There are over one billion online searches a month for local information. In other words, about 20% of searches online are for local info. It is safe to assume that much of this searching is for local business people. My wife and I found an excellent home inspector to take a look at a home purchase we made. This person was an engineer and did an outstanding inspection of our home before we purchased it.

He gave us great structural advice about things that needed to be done in the home before we bought it. The inspec

e products and services we desire from the comfort of our homes and far more efficiently than the other modes of traditional media.

All this background information is great, but is the Internet a safe place to do business? Despite all the negative information we may get about the Internet, eCommerce is a booming industry that generates over three hundred million dollars a year. But what about finding people to do more personalized business transactions like providing us with professional services. Can we find a reliable person to repair our car, fix our financial situation, clear up our credit, or remodel our house, or should we only do business with professionals referred to us locally?

Is the Internet a Safe Place to Find Services?

More and more people are looking to the Internet to find local businesses. There are over one billion online searches a month for local information. In other words, about 20% of searches online are for local info. It is safe to assume that much of this searching is for local business people. My wife and I found an excellent home inspector to take a look at a home purchase we made. This person was an engineer and did an outstanding inspection of our home before we purchased it.

He gave us great structural advice about things that needed to be done in the home before we bought it. The inspec

erred to us locally?

Is the Internet a Safe Place to Find Services?

More and more people are looking to the Internet to find local businesses. There are over one billion online searches a month for local information. In other words, about 20% of searches online are for local info. It is safe to assume that much of this searching is for local business people. My wife and I found an excellent home inspector to take a look at a home purchase we made. This person was an engineer and did an outstanding inspection of our home before we purchased it.

He gave us great structural advice about things that needed to be done in the home before we bought it. The inspector told us about structural things with our garage, termite issues, electrical wiring, and even inspected the house's support system before we purchased it. As a matter of fact, our real estate broker was so impressed by the home inspector that he used him for future work.

My point is we would have probably never found someone with his level of expertise without using the Internet. With hundreds of billions of eCommerce transactions and a trillion dollars in Internet-related sales, the Internet cannot be the totally unreliable place to do business as the traditional media sometimes seems to suggest. The Internet can be a place where criminals and hackers prey on unsuspecting people with anonymity, but there are ways to protect yourself from these types of scams and take advantage of the benefits of the Internet.

In part 2 of this article, we will learn how to use failsafe types of services to protect yourself and locate outstanding service professions to help you. We will examine how services like eBay.com, eLance.com, RentaCoder.com, and iGanit.com will help you find great professionals both nationally and locally to do business both safely and securely.

Until next time, I hope you are Always On Top in your business and personal life.