Suppose this were May 1989

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pizzafari

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(I thought about posting this in the affiliate marketing forum, but it seemed more appropriate here) In May 1989 I was just about to finish High School, and my current computer at the time would have been a used PC-XT after having gone through an Atari ST and C-64 before that.

It's now May 2009 and we've reached a point where someone can stay at home, and without need for collaboration/partners, and modest computer skills, can make a decent amount of money.

Can anyone who's old enough to remember the late 80's think of any situation where someone could make money under almost those same conditions? (IE: stay home, no partners, minimal computer skills)

The only thing I can think of is maybe if you wrote a small game or app for PC, Mac, AtariST, or Amiga, and sold it through a small ad in a computer magazine, but even that required decent programming skill.

Can anyone think of what would be the affiliate/internet marketing equivalent of 20 years ago, or have we truly reached a unique moment?
 


Postal Mail Marketing was very effective and anyone could learn to do it. And don't forget multi level marketing, many of them were not scams and you could make big money if you worked hard and smart.
 
vladb2 said:
Classified spamming. Send me 1 dollar type of crap.
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lapre_don.jpg
 
I think classified spamming most closely resembles AM. The difference is speed. Where it would take weeks to test a classified ad, an AM can run through 100's of variations of ads and landing pages.
 
pizzafari: Was there such a thing as "modest" computer skills in the 80s? You either knew how to use one well or you didn't, in so far as I recall... If you were really good, you could probably telnet or DC into banks and fuck around with their systems.
I'm fairly certain there was some Direct Marketing over the W.E.L.L. as well, but I'm too young to remember it clearly.

Oh, and premium number BBSs

Erect: '89... not '99... Jesus, who still had an XT in '99?!
 
There was some decent cash BBS'ing, i know some places charged a monthly and had large membership base. But i dont think you were able to make a living doing it.
 
(sorry to take so long getting back to this)

HarveyJ, what I meant by "modest" skills was that NOW someone can at least build a decent working website (php, shell, css/html) even if they don't know C or Pascal which would have been neccesary to program a game or desktop app in 1989.

Here's another example I remembered: back then I was using my AtariST for my midi keyboard hobby. In the back of Music magazines then, you would see all sorts of ads selling song files sequenced in midi, or small keyboard patch libraries, or small music apps. I would guess these were mostly sole-proprieters working out of their home.

Oh yea, and my mother owned a small travel agency (office) at the time. It was not uncommon to occasionally get "junk faxes" and "automated telemarketing machine" calls. I guess the faxes could originate from a PC with an autodialer + modem, and they probably had some kind of affiliate deal with an office supply co. As for the automated telemarketing machines, you can see pictures of these things on the web, they had cassettes and recievers built in. I guess many of these fax and phone marketers were lone cowboys working from home.

Can anyone think of any other examples?
 
I suppose there was some cottage industry programming going on. but I'd say direct mailing, autodialers were the equiv of AM.
 
Arcade machines...negotiate locations w/ biz owners (media buys)...place machines and check them every 10 days to remove your coinage...

if it breaks - owner calls you, you call your warranty guys...My family used to do A LOT of these in the 80s - I mean hundreds
 
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