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Here are a few new internet business ideas that I won't be using, but I hope that someone will. The first comes from peoples frustration with technologies like e-books. They don't want to spend the hundreds for the software, and even when they do, they have trouble learning to use it.
A service business that compiles e-books for people is a solution to this problem. You could even have customers e-mail a photo and story about each family member or friend, and have you make a photo scrapbook for them. The idea is that they can download the book when done.
You also host it on your site for a year or more, with the download link on a page that only they know the address of. That way they can give the book away, sell it, or otherwise distribute it to whomever they please. A larger contract might be the first high school yearbook in an e-book format (probably already done by the time you read this).
If you know a little about search engines, you may know that Google and others give preference to sites that are older. This is a part of their search algorithms, and probably a good idea. It does mean, however, that even the best site in the world on a given topic may be nearly impossible to find. This can also happen because the site has few incoming links (another part of the algorithms).
One solution is a search engine that gives priority to new web sites. In fact, this search engine might drop sites from the results once they are six months old, or perhaps always display those older sites on the bottom half of the page. The top results would always be the most relevant sites that are the newest. This wouldn't be better than existing search engines, but would serve a niche they don't serve.
What makes this a workable internet business idea? The mere fact that it would be so radically different from other search engines would attract attention and usage. More importantly, many people would love to check regularly to see what new sites are out there covering "backpacking," money making," "baby names," or whatever. New site owners, frustrated waiting to show up in Google would be regular visitors, looking for their own sites.
This could be a paid-inclusion search engine. The only point here is to buy something, but without the usual information sites in the results or "Buy leather on Ebay!" advertisements. Results could be randomly presented at first, with the ones getting clicks rising to the top of the results. A democratic placement similar to Google's ads, but with enough information to make it more meaningful than five to ten-word sales pitches.
Related page: Random Business Ideas