Here is something I am pretty excited about. Its something I have had on the back burner for a looooong time and just never got anywhere (my concept). Basically I wanted to do a apprentice style search engine marketing show on the web. I think many of us in the industry have talked about it at conferences and what not but nobody has ever done anything.
Well Joel Comm has taken the bull by the horns and launched The Next Internet Millionaire. I inquired with Joel a bit about the website to find out how some of it worked (prior to launching).
I asked Joel to give me the rundown – “We’re doing the web’s first reality show. Opened the doors yesterday and already had 15,000 views on the trailer video and 60 audition videos. Tons more on the way. We’ll end up selecting 12 people who will come to Colorado for 2 weeks and a 12-day intensive competition. The winner gets $25K and an opportunity to do a large scale joint venture with me. I believe we are breaking new ground and my goal is to demonstrate that the web is ready for prime time.. that is, that weekly long-form serial entertainment is viable on the Internet.”
I gotta tell you I am a little envious. I think this is going to be a massive hit. I get emails from people everyday asking how to make money online and to have a web based tv show people could watch where people actual make money (or not) I think is a massive recipe for success.
Nice work Joel! You can check out the Next Internet Millionaire here
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2414 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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That sounds really cool, I’m interested to see how this goes…
I just signed up and liked how the first thing you see, before you get to the site, is a long form pitch of his products (which is how you make millions). Nice.
at first i was really interested by this. When i got to the site which looks like your typical e-book page, i was pretty disappointed. The crappy video production isn’t helping either. Getting further into the site it seems much more legit, but is it really necessary for this guru to totally detract from the purpose of his site with a bunch of spammy crap at the beginning?
Great idea. Terrible execution. You would have done it better shoe.
If there’s anyone who can make something like this a success, then it’s Joel. And if it’s “done right” then I would expect some of the offline media to start covering it, which really could be huge.
Kind of reminds me of the good ‘ol days when we had “dot com guy” who lived in his apartment for a year on only things bought on the internet.
Interesting concept, but I probably wouldn’t watch. Sure, people will be interested in how they’ll make the cut, but is internet promotion anything fun and exciting? No, it’s building links, typing out content, and making database queries. Where’s the Hollywood angle in real world online marketing?
I have to agree. That spammy sales letter page is a real turn off for me. Great idea though.
Brian do you think offline promotion is anymore exciting? If you have evered worked in sales offline and also online im sure you would find it MUCH more exciting online.
The hollywood angle would definitely be that someone could potentially walk away a millionaire, if the premise is true that they will receive 25k and doing a joint venture with Joel, and in turn make millions on the internets.
The actual details are boring, though. At least with the offline stuff, ala The Apprentice, it’s about interacting with people. This would be about interacting with unseen users. Maybe I’m just not in the target audience.
Yep I received an email about it…last week.:) thought about giving it a shot…don’t know yet though.
I thought the vid was pretty good…..”Andrew, yu’re FIRED”….
Wow, either I don’t read the 47 marketing emails I get a day or this was not pushed nearly as hard as the regular newly launched ideas/products.
This could work. I might have to try.
Seeing all the comments here I wont go ahead and signup. Looks very interesting though
*Heads off to watch the video*
I hate those things Its a great ploy for link love but I dont really find any of it interesting. Is he trying to be the new donald trump. .. TRUMP 2.0?
Very… very smart! I’m sure this is going to be a big deal!
terrible execution, good idea.
The Apprentice was about the only reality TV show I could stomach. Even though I learned a few things from The Trump, I even got tired of him after a few seasons. So I don’t think I’ll be watching this very closely.
What about the ms paint graphics on the main video page LOL
Mehh, Im not too excited by it. I thought the video was cheesy and I dont know how interesting something like this can be. I think its a good idea but the execution of the idea is what will make or break it.
Sometimes I really regret living in Europe… only sometimes though.
I think people who really make cash won’t compete in this show anyway; but it’s a nice sum for “real” start-ups and one more chance to get your projects flowing.
I think the reality show format has been abused so much, that it can only work if you add the right nerd humour flavour – it’s gotta be fun to watch, not just serious competition. And if an idea presented in this show is really good, chances of realization are much higher anyways, I guess.
Being Trump 2.0 wouldn’t be the worst of scenarios, I guess
I think Brian has a valid point here. People getting in pissing matches is entertaining. In this case, that might be relegated to some snippy e-mails or IMs. Not exactly exciting (even if the nuts and bolts are otherwise equivalently dry).
What if they include tribal council at the end of every episode? And grueling physical challenges? (Like simulated power outages in which contestants are required to carry their servers on foot from one datacenter to another.) Would you watch then?
Yea I was really excited about it until I watched the video. And I thought – this is going to be a piece of $hit after watching how poorly-done the video was. Oh well…
Trump was exactly what I was thinking when I watched that. I am sure Trump would come after you if you tried use that thought.
I remember you talking about something just like this in one of your older podcasts.
I think you’re idea is better Shoe, and I think you could execute it a lot better as well. The webpage is terrible to start with but as someone mentioned, there needs to be some incentive. You’re giving people advice on PPC which can bring in thousands of dollars. Might have to think of something to make it good for “TV” though as people sitting in front of a computer isn’t the ideal something I’d want to see.
Brainstorm more and launch yours Shoe.
hmm the site just changed !!
Joel’s a good guy and very knowledgable. I hired him as a consultant about 3 years ago, and had a nice discussion. I haven’t really been keeping track of his ventures lately. This sounds like an interesting idea.
Let’s face it…video production values for online folks just plain suck. Everyone thinks they’re “good enough” to get by. I haven’t watched Joel’s…but most folks would do well to pay a professional a few hundred bucks to light, shoot and mic their pitch..then to edit it the right way. It truly does make a huge difference…but very few are doing it.
Cool to see your Idea in action.. I think it can Be a big hit … we shall see how it all pans out..
Fantastic, this is really good. I do want to be the next millionaire.
So Jeremy, are you doing your own or is it all Joel’s now?
btw, his ebook and your post about Googleninja got me thinking I should market my sites rather than worry about building them.
yuck…. europe
then don’t count on internet tv to get you there!
Very nice. Or like that SportsCenter commercial where Lance Armstrong is pedal powering the building? That would be worth watching… for a while. About 3 minutes, until the geeks fall over dead.
sounds like a great idea
kevin
Wow coming from Joel this actually looks pretty cool. I would never have expected him to launch something this entertaining.
hehe the reality idea is a nice one. Actually there are several niches where you could do it: SEO, blogging, affiliate marketing…
Hahaha. I like it. Make them power their own servers with sweat. But yeah, it wouldn’t last very long… Oh well.
Hey Shoe.. thanks for the write up. All press is good press, right? I appreciate the comments from both supporters and detractors as well. I’ve wanted to do something like this for some, but it is not a minor endeavor.
With the video, we were on a crunch time to get it done so it would be ready for launch. The comments have been overwhelmingly positive, but a few people have picked on the audio synching issue. If we could go back and change it now, we would. But it would reset our views to zero and we don’t want to do that. Most people understand that video streaming on the web is far from perfect.
Regarding the offer people receive after the main page I say this. What better way to demonstrate how we make money online than to use the actual process? We’ve had a very favorable response to our offer as we have really loaded it up with a ton of stuff, and it is converting quite nicely.
Regarding the show itself, things are well on their way. We’ve got our first corporate sponsors and there are some people who are pitching the concept to tv networks. Though my goal has been to do an Internet-only show that demonstrates the web as a viable medium for this type of entertainment. Is the world ready? I think so.
We’ve got a colorful group of people to select from for our cast and expect there will be many more before the first round of auditions end the first week in June. We’ve got some great teachers participating in the process and we’ve got a professional a/v crew coming in to shoot the whole thing with four cameras.
Let’s face it… for most people, the internet is Google, eBay, Amazon, etc… They don’t know that there are regular people making a boatload of money online. We’re very excited about this project and believe that it will expose a large number of people to our industry.
Thanks again, Shoe.
Joel
This would be fun, it would be a crash course for people who are new in the domain, they’ll learn so much by watching
That trailer was terrible. Just watching that, makes me think twice about signing up. I hope the show is much better than that trailer was…
If you look at the pictures on the website about the filming of the trailer you can see it wajust 2 guys with a camcorder and a tripod.
Nothing wrong with that, but if you have $300K in prize money to hand out, drop a couple grand on the trailer.
Moi aussi.
“Next Internet Millionaire” is going to make Internet History! And I’m 1000% jazzed about auditioning to be part of it!
People pay THOUSANDS of dollars to attend conferences led by the amazing line-up Joel Comm has brought together! Now imagine getting individual training from this DREAM TEAM! If you’re on the Internet and have ANY interest in marketing – you NEED to submit your audition video before the deadline!
BEST of luck to everyone auditioning!
Have a DYNAMITE day!
Wes Wyatt
I got to know this from here. nyways, me not giving it a shot
Wow, this is history in the making, what a great ideas to put the first internet marketing show on air. I can’t wait to see the show.
Congratulation Joel, you have made a big difference.
I’m sure the new internet marketing revolution will be hitting all over the world. It will explode with great ideas on internet marketing business.
To all the 12 contestants, show your created and brilliant ideas and become the next internet millionaire.