Along with the Internet comes a world of opportunity for an artist to promote. Utilizing various social networks, blogs, YouTube, and other free services, one could essentially establish and synergize a web campaign all from the comfort of home. This sounds great right? Yes, it does. Everyone else in the world thinks so too.
And therein lays the problem.
The trade-off for the easy access the Internet provides to "artistic" endeavors is the loss of value given to the work of true artists. And it's not just the Internet that is threatening to make the work of the artist nearly obsolete. Photoshop and software of its ilk is readily available and utilized by countless people. They are using these software programs and Internet applications to create what they consider to be their own art.
It would seem that the massive opportunity created by the Internet has finally been saturated to the point that artists, musicians, writers, and even businesses are compelled to offer services or products for free in order to stay competitive. YouTube videos and MySpace pages made by those who would otherwise purchase art (or services to learn how to create art) only make competition more fierce. Meanwhile, others who rely on their Internet presence to generate income are falling by the wayside, unable to effectively market themselves to the consumer.
More and more aspiring writers find their niche in online blogging, devaluing their talent, and causing them to provide free work to news outlets as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Even teenagers have the ability to create their own blogs. However, it is the experienced writers, as well as businesses and even charitable causes that are taking advantage of the Internet's blogging opportunities to report news and to market products and services.
The problem is, in doing so, they are eliminating the necessity for publications to provide writing positions with benefits and fair pay. This makes one wonder at what point the Internet will be "full-up." If that ever occurs, it will end up becoming relatively useless. Just think of how difficult it can be sometimes to find what you need on the Web without seeing a bunch of stuff you aren't interested in or even need to know.
As the flooded market makes it increasingly difficult to turn a profit on the Internet, we begin to realize how important it is to market oneself in a shrewd business manner. Marketing is key, but if your goal is to acquire income, then you have to do so in creative and innovative ways.
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