I spent an entertaining half hour recently, finding out about myself and my company on the internet. Here are some of the fascinating ‘facts’ I uncovered on various websites and forums…

1. Streetwise Publications is run by the Harrison Brothers. Very interesting, except I don’t have a brother. My business partner does…but it isn’t me. Honest.
2. Streetwise Publications is a father and son business. Interesting again…but given that me and my business partner are a year apart in age, something of a biological impossibility.
3. Streetwise Publications is a ‘Mom and Pop’ business. Now that’s really worrying. I’m not sure what one of those is, but there seems to be some implication of cross-dressing. I hope it’s not me.
4. The business operates out of a back bedroom somewhere. I see, so maybe the other 18 staff work in the bathroom. I’m quite pleased though because it’s going to save us a fortune on rent and rates.
5. The testimonials on Streetwise Publications promotions are made up. Wonder what’s in those twelve large ring binders with ‘Testimonials’ written on them across the other side of the office then?
6. The positive comments placed on internet forums are placed there by John Harrison who assumes multiple online identities. As if I didn’t have enough to do!
7.  Peter Parfait, the supposed editor of the Streetwise property newsletters, is not a real person, and is really John Harrison. That’s going to come as a real shock to his wife and four children. We are ‘guilty’ of being about the same age and with a similar hairstyle (or lack of it) so I suppose we only have ourselves to blame, I’m tempted to post a picture of us together, but it would spoil the fun.
8. John Harrison doesn’t appear on the electoral roll, and therefore must be up to no good. Well I do, and I’m not…up to no good I mean.
9. John Harrison and Streetwise Publications are going broke/going out of business. This key piece of information has apparently come from a “company insider.” Damn, and I’d just booked a fortnight in Skegness as well!

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. Not everything I found was wrong, ridiculous, insulting, or libellous…and I suppose I should be flattered that people are sufficiently interested to write anything about me at all…but a very high percentage of what you find on the net is just nonsense.

Who put it there? Why did they put it there? Do they know what they’re talking about, or are they just idiots sounding off? What all these comments have in common is that they have been posted by anonymous people hiding behind a username.

And yet more and more people are increasingly turning to the internet for the information they use to make important life decisions. One of the other comments I saw on my recent trawl of the net, concerned our Property Entrepreneurs Home Study Course.   Someone asked on a forum whether it was ‘any good’. A reply came back that although this person hadn’t read it, it wasn’t worth buying because all the information in it is probably available on the internet for free.

I just did a test and typed the words ‘Property Investment’ into Google – and do you know how many pages it came up with…over 212 million! In a sense, that forum poster was right – all the information you need is there for free… somewhere in that 212 million pages.

But you’re not going to live long enough to read all those pages!

And even if you did, how are you going to sort the good stuff from the rubbish…the stuff posted up by the property market’s equivalent of the guy who thinks I work out of a back bedroom somewhere?  You can’t, and that’s why the internet has paradoxically created an explosion in demand for ‘paid for’ information products.

You see, the internet has encouraged many millions  to seek out information on subjects that interest them…people who previously wouldn’t have bothered. While they wouldn’t have visited a library or book shop, the seemingly quick and easy availability of information online stirred them into action…action which more often than not resulted in frustration and disappointment.

So now you have a large number of people who have had their interest piqued but not satisfied. The internet has expanded the market, and alerted hordes of new people to the possibility that the information they want and need is out there somewhere.  They just need somebody to sift, edit and summarise it for them into a form they can readily access, understand and use.

This is the complete opposite of what the experts predicted at the dawn of the internet. It was supposed to be the death of the ‘hard copy’ written word. And yet there are more books, newsletters, magazines and newspapers published today than ever before.

The demand for information has never been higher. The amount of raw information out there has never been greater. But the capacity of the average person to turn that raw information into something usable has never been lower.  And that’s why it’s a Golden Age for Information Publishers  – people who can take the all important raw information on a subject, and boil it down to the essentials…what people really need to know to do something better, faster, cheaper…or whatever.

If this interests and excites you (and if you have any interest at all in making a great deal of money in your spare time, it should) then you can find some more information here. http://www.johnsrant.co.uk/user.asp?page=97 .

I hope you enjoy it and take inspiration from it. Oh, and one more thing…the next time you read on the net that John Harrison bites the heads off live chickens, bear this article in mind!