Unless affiliate program restricts who can distribute their wares, affiliate programs only serve their masters! Amazon.com is often thought to be largest affiliate program online with "over 500,000 Associates of all sizes and virtually every area of interest."

With an estimated 141 million users online around world and 120 million in United States alone (Jupiter Media Matrix - http://www.jmm.com), you are looking at an availability of only 282 customers per Amazon.com affiliate!

As you can see, Amazon is deeply concerned about your personal success. Tsk, tsk. Your odds of earning a decent income from being an Associate in Amazon program is nearly zilch. Most affiliate programs on web have nearly same concern for your well-being as does Amazon.

The secret to making money online is simple. You must have your own products or service, or program you choose to affiliate with should not have thousands of other affiliates that you must compete with also. For products and services that you distribute, there must be an opportunity to develop high demand with very limited competition.

You could create your own ebook to sell, but truth is that you would just be another of tens of thousands of ebooks competing for same dollars. Besides that, an ebook is a one-shot deal in most cases. As Amazon is struggling with, online success stories always offer something that people will come back and buy more of, again and again.

Subscriptions and contractual services continue to deliver payday to many thousands of successful online entrepreneurs.

So question you need to be asking yourself right now is this. What product or service can I develop that can be marketed as a subscription or contractual service? And how can I do so at a profit?

Let me give you a couple of tips. Make certain that there are not others offering this product or service right now for free. And more importantly, start small and grow as your business grows.

At all times, you should stay focused on bottom line. What good is a million dollar business that does not earn profits? About as good as a DrKoop.com, Themestream.com or other Internet domain that currently resides in waste bin of what could have been.

This New Year, do not simply make a New Year's Resolution. Find a reason strong enough to propel you forward. Believe and feel importance of your purpose with every fiber of your being. Reaffirm your dedication daily. And make this years resolution more a matter of resolve. Resolve to make your web property profitable in 2002.

To get to new smiley face ranking system to show up on bar, you'll need to click on Google's logo located on far left and choose "toolbar options." Scroll down to "page information" and put a check mark in "voting buttons" box. Save your changes and look at bar again. It should now contain a happy face and a frowning face. These faces allow you to rate websites as you visit them, in essence giving them a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down."

So far Google is saying this new voting system is simply a test, but if they do keep it and start using it to rank pages on their site it could make a major impact on search optimization firms and others who are trying to get a top Google listing.

Sort of reminds me of my elementary school days and stickers teachers would put on my homework. So what rating is your site going to get, a happy or a sad face?