Not sure if any of you have seen this but it’s pretty cool. In honor of Google’s 10th birthday, they’re letting us take a look back at Google in January 2001.

It’s strange to see how far the internet has come. Try googling popular searches like “myspace”, “facebook”, “ipod”, “reggie bush”, etc.. They aren’t there! If only I had a time machine.

http://www.google.com/search2001.html

Yesterday the Dow dropped some 350+ points and dipped below 10,000 for the first time in years. It’s still not as bad as it was after 9/11, but things aren’t looking good. I’m not all doom and gloom or “the sky is falling”, but some measures will need to be taken. In fact, when this is all said and done, it won’t even compare to the economic hard times from the Great Depression and the Oil Embargo of the 1970s. The stock market was killed during those times for several years.

So how will our “economic crisis” in America affect the way you run your online business and websites? There are several niches that could take hits: loans, mortgages, bankings, cars, luxury items, etc. Not only are a lot of these companies going out of business, thus not spending money in Adwords and online marketing, but the average people looking for loans and credit will have a much harder time getting them. Those of you selling luxury items online might also get hit. People are going to be more cautious with their money and their credit. They won’t go around putting $1,000 worth of iPhone or car accessories on their credit cards. These are just a couple of examples.

There are some measures you can take to protect yourself. If you run a service website (such as hosting), make sure you get paid up front. Try to get cash only, or give people an incentive for paying with cash. Cash will be king, I would try to build up your reserves as much as possible. Don’t rely on credit cards too heavily to fun your affiliate marketing accounts or pay for your servers. I just read this morning that American Express is dropping the limits of 50% of their customers. You may have a $10,000 credit limit today, but could see it dropped to $2,000 tomorrow.

It’s hard for anyone to predict what will happen. You may not see a decrease in traffic over the coming months, but you may see a drop in your earnings per click. I’m not an economic genius, I just wanted to make everyone aware of the situation so you can prepare yourself if needed.

For me, I will just go on business as usual. 90% of my sites are sports related, and I don’t see the sports market being affected too much. No matter what, people still value entertainement. I will also spend my money more wisely. I will also be bargain hunting for undervalued websites.

A few years ago, maybe late 2006 or early 2007, I started searching for videos games that would be coming out in the following year. The result of my search was Mass Effect. Those of you who following my blog know that I’ve owned a Mass Effect blog and forum for a long time. I wanted to get in on a game for it became popular. My Mass Effect Forum was the only one out there (other then the site’s official forums). By getting in early you can establish yourself at the top of the rankings and become an authority site by the time the game is released.

Well, I’m at it again. I’ve done some research and found a game that will be coming out over a year from now. I purchased two domains, one for a forum and one for a blog. I chose doing two seperate sites rather than 1 site for everything so that I can spread the wealth among two sites. I’ll be working on building these sites up over the next week or two. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to purchase a Vbulletin license or if I should just use phpbb (because it’s free).

If my luck pans out and this game is a huge success, then I’ll have two awesome, established sites on my hand. I will then have the option to keep running them and making money or to sell them at the peak of their exposure.

I’ll announce the domains/sites once they’re built.

I recommend getting in early on a niche. It’s not hard to find movies, music bands, games, athletes, etc. that will be popular later down the line. I did similar things with my Tebow site. I build my Tebow site just before Tebowmania hit the scene and when he won the Heisman last year I was seeing huge growth on my site.