Guys, the internet is here to stay. The dotcom bubble has burst, but as you will see below there are a number of internet success stories which have emerged recently.

If you are like me, and sometimes stuck for inspiration, then read on and check out what I think are the top 5 internet success stories – you never know, one day it could be me or you filling one of these slots

1. You Tube

Is the brain child of three former PayPal employess, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, YouTube started in April 2005. The catchy name based on the cathode ray tube, which was used in television way before the days of plasma and LCD TVs. There is a bit of an ‘urban myth’ that youtube was born when Steve and Chad couldn’t work out an easy way to upload videos taken at one of their dinner parties in San Francisco – there wasnt a readily available way on the internet to do this without hassle and fuss.  It didnt work immediently for them, however by the summer of 2006, videos were being watched by hundreds and millions. By 2007 it was estimated that youtube used more bandwidth than the entire internet did in 2000. Alexa (page rank) ranked YouTube as the number 3 site on the internet behind Google and Facebook. I would say YouTube qualifies in anyones Internet Success Stories wouldn’t you?

2. Facebook

Only comes in at number two because it hasnt been around for as long as YouTube. It in fact holds a higher page rank on Alexa – unbelievably the ONLY site that ranks higher is Google itself. That just blows me away!

Facebook started in 2004, and now has over 500,000,000 users. Yes thats 500 million.

The owner and founder Mark Zuckerberg owns 24% of the company, and 2010 revenue is expected to be in the region of $1.1 billion. Not bad for a company started by a Havard dropout and a few other geeks.

Microsoft has recently purchased 1.6% of the company for $240 million which means roughly, the value of the company is around $15 billion.

3. Twitter

I remember when I first heard about Twitter (not that long ago it seems) whilst driving home from work on Radio 1. Apparently this new craze allowed users to post what they were doing several times a day. I didn’t quite understand how this was so appealing, as I was already a member of Facebook and you had that facilitywith them. Boy, was I wrong! It seems every celebrity is using it these days! Twitter is described as the’SMS’ of the internet.

To give you an idea about the explosion, Twitter had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007, and 100,000,000 tweets per quarter in 2008! WOW!

Twitter seems to guard their membership numbers & profits from the public, however we know that Twitter is within the top 50 Alexa page rank which means its doing very very well. A hacker managed to hack into their system and found that ‘The projections for the end of 2013 were $1.54 billion in revenue, $111 million in net earnings, and 1 billion users’… Although these numbers cant be trusted – still pretty impressive.

I recently joined as well for the first time – check me out at

4. Groupon

Another fascinating company which is starting to really make some waves. In fact its one of the few online companies I consistently buy from – they are kind of addictive and I look forward to seeing the daily deal in my inbox. I dont believe, at time of writing that they are that well known, however I have just been informed that they are the fastest growing company on the internet.

The principle behind the way they work is simple and genius, they are a ‘deal-a-day company. A ‘Group’ of people leverage their buying power buy signing up to buy a heavily discounted LOCAL product which is emailed each day to ‘Groupon’s’ email list within that particular city. For example, today I was offered a full sports massage at 70% off normal prices, at my local health club. If enough people sign up, everyone is sent a voucher. If not enough people sign up then the deal doesnt fly and you get your money back. Simple but genius. It works for the companies as well – they increase their cash turnover, get paid upfront, and also have the possibilities of repeat customers at full prices.

Its hard to tell what they are worth, however I can confirm that in April 2010, Groupon raised $135 million from Digital Sky Technologies, a russian investment firm. These guys are one to watch

5. Gurbaksh Chahal

My only individual in the top 5. Gurbaksh’ s story is truely inspiring. His parents arrived from India in 1982 with next to nothing via a ‘lottery visa’. He was bought up with very little. However, by the age of 16 he had dropped out of school to develop his brainchild ‘ClickAgents’. Within two years, Value Click had aquired the company for $40 million. He was only 18!

Since then he has developed Blue Lithium (bought by Yahoo for $300m cash) and has started his latest project ‘gWallet’. He has also appeared on Oprah introduced as one of the youngest and wealthiest Entreprueners on the planet, plus he has already written a book about his journey.

I dont believe this is the last we will hear from Gurbaksh – a welcome inclusion into my top 5 Internet Success Stories.

****Internet Success Stories – Special Mention****

Personally, as a budding internet marketer I feel it rude not to mention my two favorite ‘internet marketing’ success stories. I am members of both of their online ‘universities’. What I have learnt from them, in my eyes, is probably more valuable and useable than my Chemical Engineering degree.

1. Kyle and Carson from Wealthy Affiliate University

You can read a little more about Kyle and Carson here, however in a nutshell they are a couple of kids who have created the number 1 internet marketing community on the internet today. Its hard to find actual monetary information on how much the company is worth, and how much they both make from online income. In fact I wouldnt even want to guess, but to give you an idea, they have helped over 10,000 people bring in more than $100m worth of online income.They also pick up a tidy recurring income of $97 per month from each member, although obviously some people drop out, thats a pretty chunky online income!

I believe they started out building online resources such as ‘beating Adwords’ and ‘Inside the List’ and then moved onto their now famous Wealthy Affiliate University, and internet success story on its own.

Personally, I have been a member over there since December 2009, and have had many personal emails direct from these two guys advising me on issues an optimisation of my online business. I reckon thats pretty cool. Go on, do a search for negative or scam reviews on WA – you wont find any.

2. Mark Ling from Affilorama

Mark Ling is a Kiwi based internet entrepreneur who has made ALOT of money selling affiliate products through clickbank (online database of e-books, self help and software programs). When I say alot, I am talking more than $1,000,000 per year passive income. The natural progression for him was (similar to Kyle and Carson) to start his own online community in 2006 called Affilorama. Since then Affilorama has gone on to win multiple awards such as:

* Air New Zealand Cargo Canterbury Export Awards 2010
* Champion Canterbury Awards 2008, 2009 – Global Operator Finalist: T
* Vero Business Awards 2009 – Finalist
* AmCham Export Awards 2008 – Exporter of the Year Finalist
* Deloitte Fast 50 2008
* Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific 2008 – Winner

If you think internet marketing and online businesses are a scam then you only have to see that Affilorama was voted the 23rd fastest growing companies in New Zealand. This is the real deal folks – check out a little more about them on their ‘About Us‘ page.

He is also the owner of ‘Traffic Travis’ an excellent free online tool which helps with keyword and SEO analysis amongst other things. And after a quick search in Wikipedia I see that Mark is also the founder of SaleHoo.com which is a ‘website specializing in global trading between wholesalers and retailers. It is one of the largest wholesale directories on the Internet and one of the first to offer international wholesale contacts.’

Again, I wouldnt be raving about a company if I hadnt been in there and checked them out myself. In July 2010 I purchased their ‘AffiloJetPack’ product and it has transformed my online business. Again, I dont believe you will find any negative reviews! Mark definitely qualifies into my top ‘internet success stories’ list.