Last month I spent several days on the Internet in search of the most profitable income opportunities for entrepreneurs. I collected hundreds of pages of useful information. I analysed the information and have come up with a list of ten exciting opportunities. However, they require a huge investment of money," Vivek said to me with disappointment. "I'll tell you of an opportunity that would not cost you an arm and a leg. You can start an Online Information Research Business and make money working for yourself as information professional," I suggested to Vivek.
"What do information professionals actually do?" Vivek asked me. "Information professionals are sometimes called as information broker and information researcher. They provide information services to their clients. Such services include collection, research, analysis, organization and presentation of information," I replied.
"Do you think there is really a market for such services?" Vivek asked. "There are giants in this business making billions of dollars every year. However, they concentrate on big companies, government agencies and institutions that can afford to hire their services. There are millions of small businesses and individuals who need researched information to help them make important decisions. They will certainly hire you, if you provide excellent service. I believe that there has always been, and there will always be, a market for high-quality, value-added research and information services," I replied.
"Who will hire individual researchers?" Vivek asked me in a doubtful voice. "Researchers who need to outsource a part of their research activities, Consultants who need information that will be passed to their clients, Book authors who want to have supporting materials for their writings and Small businesses that want to research their competitors or a particular market are some of your prospects," I replied.
"All the information one needs is available on the web for free. Do you think people would still pay me for collecting information from web?" Vivek asked me. "For each search, Search engines return thousands of web pages as search result. Most of them are not related to the ideas we have in our mind. Even if we assume that all the results are relevant, who has the time to go through all the web pages?" I asked Vivek and continued, "Most of the useful information never show up in the search engine results. You will get high-quality and accurate information only if you pay for it. Most people don't know this truth. They think they can get everything for free on web. Articles, white papers, statistics and reports are buried deep in the websites of government departments, agencies, institutions and social organizations."
"I always believed that I could get information on anything on free web," Vivek said. "Dialogweb.com, LexisNexis.com and Factiva.com are some examples for online information websites that provide quality information. Instead of spending days on free web, by paying a few dollars to these service providers, you can collect the information you need in a few hours if not a few minutes. Then there are boards, and newsgroups that give information that will never be indexed by search engines. An average web user will have no time to visit them and find important data. In addition to collection of information, you will analyze it, organize it and provide ready-to-use information," I told him.
"Where can I find more information about this occupation?" Vivek asked me. "You can start with the website of Association of Independent Information Professionals. The website address is http://www.aiip.org/ " I replied.
Two months later I received an email from Vivek. He wrote: 'I visited Amazon and bought some books on Online Research business. I learnt the research, methods and techniques thoroughly and started to market my business both online and offline. One of my friends referred my name to a New Zealand Dairy products manufacturing company. This company asked me to provide some details about Indian dairy products. I contacted milk processing companies' association and collected old and recent trade journals. I read dozens of annual reports of milk processing companies. Within a week I was able to prepare a 20 page report. I was paid Rs.16,000! Another friend is a Urologist in the United States. His friend wanted to outsource medical transcription activities to India. He asked me to prepare a report on it. I worked on this project for 15 days and earned Rs.12,000! I have made Rs.28,000 in three weeks.'