I had often heard of Internet fraudsters but had not really experienced any until last Thursday. I was in the office when I received a call from a friend and colleague at Channels TV, Ronke Raji, telling me that she had received an email purportedly from me saying I was in Spain and was stranded, having lost my purse.The email went on to say that I had tried the Nigerian Embassy in Spain but could get no help and thus asked for over 2,000 Euros to bail me out. I promptly told her I had sent no such mail!Soon after this, I received over 20 calls from other friends within the hour in quick succession to the same effect. It was obvious that this was the work of hackers or Internet fraudsters, who had managed to send the same mail to all my contacts!Prior to that day, I had been experiencing some difficulties with my Yahoo email address (i.e. lanreoyetade@yahoo.co.uk) as I could receive but not send out mails and had acquainted Yahoo with the problem but nothing had been done to rectify the situation.However, on that particular day (Thursday), I couldnt even access my email box, as it kept telling me that either or both of my email identity and password were wrong! This simply meant that not only had my email address been hacked into, the hackers had also changed my password!Thinking quickly and asking around about what I could do, I decided to use my new email address (i.e. lanreoyetade@gmail.com) to send mails to all my contacts and alert them of the scam. I also posted a caveat on Facebook to that effect.I can only hope that no one was fooled by the hackers into sending money to them. And I can bet that it was a Nigerian in the country that sent out those scam mails.One can only hope that we will start using our huge personal talents to do positively creative things in this country. God indeed will help us!Now to the matter of the day, as contributed by Olu Oludimu:Understanding Internet marketing modelsAlmost 80% of my readers ask the same question, how we can start an online business So here, I am going to share information on part of the things you need to know. This is with the view of helping you determine the kind of Internet business to start.As described by the Economist in 2001, there are four different types of Internet marketing models:1. Business To Consumer (B2C) Model2. Business To Business (B2B) Model3. Consumer To Business (C2B) Model and4. Consumer To Consumer (C2C) ModelHowever the last two, C2B and C2C are not so common, as it is very rare for you to find a business around such model.To that end, I am only going to discuss here the first two models, that is B2C and B2B models. Also an attempt will be made to give an example of business that falls in that category.Business to Consumer ModelThis is very familiar, this is when a commercial transaction occurs between an organisation and a consumer. An example of Business to Consumer model is between a website hosting company and the final consumer who will use the server space. Also, another example is Bulk SMS business.Business to Business Model This is also very familiar; in this case, the commercial transaction takes place between a business and a business. An example of this is a software development company (e.g. producing accounting software) and another organisation (say an accounting and business firm).There are other models, which are specific in definition. Below are some of them for you to choose from;1) Production model: This is a company that produces value by transforming one good into another for online consumption. An example of this is software development or any other services that aid in the execution of some of the other online business models.2) Merchant model: This is a company that specialises in the sales and organises the delivery of goods and services to an online market. An example of this online is bookstores, payment solution providers and other goods and services sales organisations.3) Advertising model: This is a company that specialises in providing the service of advertising or promotion to other online firms, for example, those firms that operate using the production or merchant model. This model charges these companies a fee to advertise the goods and services provided by the other online business models.Other models are:4) Affiliate model 5) Information model 6) Subscription model and 7) Community model It is important to know which model you would like to be involved in or in which you would like to be considered an expert, as this would go a long way to assist you in your operations.Extracted from Olu Oludimus (www.nigeriapay.com 08051614052)e-Book; Fundamentals of Internet Marketing.
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