There’s been a fair bit of talk over the last month in online marketing circles about e-book salesman Joel Comm’s latest venture: The Next Internet Millionaire.
For those not familiar with Comm, his business started from he is best known for selling expensive ebooks advising people how to make money from Adsense, and then later like a lot of people operating in this space, he sold ebooks showing people how to sell ebooks or in their speak: “internet marketing.”
The Next Internet Millionaire Program itself is a straight rip-off of pretty much any Mark Burnett produced show ever made, think Survivor or The Apprentice, and comes complete with a Survivor-esque introduction, an Apprentice style expert panel, and tasks that have to be completed by the contestants. Each week one contestant goes home, until there is one survivor…sorry Internet Millionaire.
I’m not entirely sure which way to side in relation to the program. On the one hand it’s slickly produced and some of the expert advice is worth watching, particularly if you’re in the ebook…sorry Internet Marketing business. Yet on the other hand you just know that the whole show is a front for Joel Comm Inc; a vehicle from which he can further expose himself to a broader audience and ultimately sell more ebooks and related products. If it works, good for him I guess, but ultimately you can be the judge. Episode Seven as follows:
What’s the point of the show really? People are beating this reality tv thing to death….
The point is to make money by selling more ebooks to people who see the show and think they can be the next internet millionaire. The people who sell ebooks never do anything original but they’re good at marketing.
> For those not familiar with Comm, his business started from selling expensive ebooks advising people how to make money from Adsense…
Actually, Joel was a successful affiliate way before any ebooks. I first met him in 2000 or so when he was one of my top affiliates for ClubMom.com.
And back in the 90’s, he sold a game site to Yahoo! So I think it’s intellectually dishonest to portray him as a mere ebook peddler.
Shawn
perhaps it was better written as “best known for”…I’ll revise it.
He seems to be some shady internet scammer. Those guys are a dime a dozen.
I saw his AdSense “book”. It’s basically a manual on how to hide ads on a page so they blend in with the page.
No wonder Google closed AdSense for small websites with people like him tricking users…
Hey Stephen -
So you’re saying it’s shady to display AdSense just like TechCrunch is doing it over to the right?
That’s the sort of thing that was in Joel’s book - removing the borders and matching the color scheme of the site.
Slickly produced. Are you kidding me. Yea it has nice editing and okay lighting. But, there is no drama to the show. Joel Comm is about as exciting as a wet mop in the series. And the same goes for all, but two of the other candidates.
I listened to Joel Talk about his new venture on Ad Age and he talked their about how high the production values are on the show. When people can only talk about production values and not talk about entertainment of the show you know that their is something seriously lacking in the show.
I do give him credit for trying, but try being a little original and maybe show us what these guys come up with in their contests. It is nice to see why someone might win.
Shawn … are you an official spokesman for Joel?? lolz! No matter how much u defend him dude, Internet marketers are ripping people left and right with fake promises and teaching them how to sell “Internet Marketing” ebooks to “Internet Marketers.” Pure Incest I say!! My advice: No one can teach you how to get rich, other than experience and hard work.
P.S. I used to be on Joel’s mailing list long back, the guy bombarded me with promotional mails every day!! It was permission based marketing turned into heavy SPAM …! No wonder I got out in no time.
While it is true Joel was half owner of classicgames.com when Y! bought it in 1997, it was not purchased because of him. It was essentially an aq-hire. Joel was not offered a job at Y!, his partner was. Joel did not approach us to sell the company, I approached classicgames to buy their engineer.
When we launched Y! Games about 6 weeks after the acquisition, the front end was totally reworked.
It was also one of the cheapest acquisitions Y! ever made. The acquisition didn’t make anyone a millionaire (although the engineer we ac-hired probably did well on the stock options he was given when he came on board).
I watched the first episode of his show, it’s pretty funny stuff.
Say what you want but the guy is a Self Made Millionaire .
He is making money doing what most people will fail at …
There can only be one original person .. The rest are all copies ..
Google - Airtran - BurgerKing - Honda - Dell They all copied someone or something .
waste of time and money
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
Hey at least I can say it was a great learning experience and I will apply and execute from what I did learn. It gave me the push on what I needed to come out with my own product. Hats off to Joel Comm.
While I’m not a big fan of Joel Comm’s style of internet marketing, I have been enjoying watching The Next Internet Millionaire - though at a very slow pace (I’m still on episode three). I think this is saying something since I generally can’t stand reality tv.
Slickly in terms of the editing, not the pace Tim. It’s certainly a cut above some of the other web style shows I’ve seen in that regard. I can’t help but think that someone from Mark Burnett’s company is going to see this and get litigious though.
Slickly interesting.
In the end, editing is the pace. It’s just not well done at all and comes off as a cheap, drawn-out, local infomercial. As self-important as it is, I’m hard-pressed to find anything really innovative about it.
Its like a TV version of “The million dollar homepage”….remember that hack?
@10, i agree
say what you want about him, slimy ebook seller, etc etc…
be that as it may - but he is still a successful businessman.
self-made, legally.
you’re, all the haters, just hating on him because he made a success out of it - and became a millionaire in the process, while you’re still doing - what you’re doing (not that there’s anything wrong with what you do)
Hehe, lawrence I guess you’re one of the retards who bought his crap LOL.
Duncan, you mention that his stuff is slickly produced…. perhaps you could re-read your post and correct all the writing mistakes and missing words?
Cheers,
Dave
Dave
Last I checked slickly is a word, be it not a very good one…at least it passed 2 separate spell checks before getting there.
Lawrence (18)
I can’t say that I disagree. There is something about the whole ebook movement I find disturbing, the preying on the desperate in particular in terms of morality, but ultimately it’s a case of let the buyer beware. There is nothing illegal in what Comm does, and there is no argument from me that he is very, very good at it.
Duncan: The Burnett-style format is the mold from which most reality shows are cast, so Comm isn’t really doing anything unusual in imitating them. There’s a show on the same network as Survivor right now called “Kid Nation”–which is pretty much Survivor Jr with a few departures from the format.
That being said, Comm’s show is far too generic for my liking. The challenges absolutely reek of “The Apprentice”–which in my opinion never portrayed anything that was useful in the real world of business, anyway.
Selling popsicles? Meh. How about each contestant designs a NEW popsicle and THEN see who sells the most? Innovation is the true mother of success on the internet, not selling (and hear this, kids: SALES AND MARKETING ARE NOT ONE AND THE SAME!!!) But then again, maybe that’s why he’s calling it the next “internet MILLIONAIRE” instead of “BILLIONAIRE”–because no “internet marketer” will be approaching the latter any time soon…
…except for “The Rich Jerk”, maybe.
OK, first and foremost….
Have you noticed that nearly 100% of the contestants are from Colorado?
Reason: Comm is too cheap to bring in out of state contestants…. in spite of the fact that his early promotional material recruited out of state contestants to submit their auditions via video.
Meaning: Unlike other reality shows, “The Next Internet Millionaire” is shot “on the fly” over a course of months instead of days weeks…. with contestants appearing “on demand”, whenever Comm is ready to shoot another episode.
Even their notebook sponsor hasn’t given their permission to use their corporate logo (obvious by the fact that their corporate logo is pixelated in “espisode 1″).
Bottomline: This is a guy who is riding on his former reputation… who has made friends with a decent videographer in exchange for visual credit.
It was a real stretch to watch the first episode… and I have to force myself to watch the others…. a feeling obviously shared by many of the contestants.
Shame on TechCrunch for giving this hooligan exposure.
…the COMMplex… hahahaha - come on people lighten up - this is a spoof and this guy is a marketer. Watch the first episode for 5 min and you’ll see that this is nothing to take seriously.
OK, I just sat through the first 30 min of the 1st episode… if one of these “contestants” is the next Internet millionaire then there’s hope for all of us!
Chris isn’t very bright. I went to the website and read the cast bios. ONE of them is from Colorado. The rest are from all over the place, including two women from Canada, one woman from the UK and a man from Costa Rica.
Just a quick note from a tech crunch reader with a film degree - one way to tell the level of production skill is not from the video quality, but from the sound. I watched most of the first episode about a month ago, and noticed that the sound was especially poor - they used room mics instead of close mics. That’s terrible form, and will make the show less enjoyable for anyone who watches it.
The sad part is that most people on productions with poor sound don’t really notice it until someone points it out.
Personally, I think this show is well done and ambitious to say the least. Would YOU have had the guts and drive to put this together, with no crew, no producers, no network backing you up and then do it as well? Give the guy credit. It was a big risk with his own money.
Ew, internet marketing ebook crap! Yuck.
This is sad
1) because ebooks are typically a waste of money
2) because almost all comments on Duncan’s Post degenerate into a discussion of his poor writing and editing skills — I thought TC had TWO editors, so why so many mistakes
While I haven’t watched more than the first episode, I would just like to comment about people discrediting “ebook salesman” - are you freakin’ kidding me? It’s about selling information - being an “infopreneur” - and marketing informational products that may be in the form of ebooks, audios, videos, etc. This is a HUGE business for many people. People buy infoproducts all day long, in many different markets, not just the “internet marketing” circles (although I do agree with the comment about internet marketers selling to internet marketers).
I’m sure I spent more than a few thousand dollars on textbooks throughout college. THAT is selling information. What’s wrong with a $50 ebook that may help a site earn more from Adsense? What’s wrong with a $150 “home study course” that teaches someone how to create their own infoproduct, set up a minisite, recruit affiliates, and market it online? NOTHING. I think the problem is when people get this type of product, and turn around and create a regurgitated version of the same content. Instead of actually applying the information in its own right, people think “hey, I like this internet marketing suff, let me create and market my own marketing product.”
So, while I’ve never purchased anything from Joel, I think it’s a shame that people are speaking so negatively about “internet marketing.” Not everybody can create the next web2.0 startup that gets big VC money and acquired by a heavy hitter….but almost everybody can create their own little internet marketing business. It’s more about “lifestyle entrepreneurship” than about being the next dot com. Sorry to ramble.
It’s pretty sad to see what could potentially be a great idea executed so poorly in an effort to try and elevate Joel Comm beyond his B grade celebrity status.
From a production perspective this program is poor, the editing is rubbish and the story telling is fragmented and hard to follow. I should be the perfect viewer for this type of program but it lost my interest as soon as the “Jungle Guy” introduced himself.