Online Stores

• Online stores were amongst the first businesses on the Internet. In their simplest form, they seek to replicate a brick-and-mortar shop or catalog online. Online stores, much like their real world counterparts, need to organize merchandise logistics, have the products in place before selling them, have a secure means of processing payments and have a well-organized website to display their products.
  
  

Membership-Based Businesses

• Membership-based Web businesses gain the vast majority of their income from offering structured membership services. The structure and price depend on the business model. Their content can range from access to newspaper or magazine articles to specialized or technical information. A popular membership-based business model is the dating site. These sites tend to have the most structured membership system in which the more a member pays, the more the member can do on the site.
  
  

Auctions and Marketplaces

• One of the early online business successes was an auction website. The website allows users to post items for sale, with other members bidding for the items. Once a preset time limit expires, the highest bidder gets each item. The auction site continues to be a burgeoning business area, but has also given rise to specialized marketplaces. These marketplaces are websites that bring together small or large sellers and freelancers. For example, there are a number of writing marketplaces where writers can bid for work and connect to contractors.
  
  

Social Networks

• Social networking grew out of email and email-related group sites into full-blown Web phenomena. Social networks tend to offer free membership and aim to bring users from all over the world together. They allow people to reconnect with lost friends and to meet people who are interested in similar things or share similar beliefs. Social networks make their money through selling advertising and data.
  
  

Content Providers

• Content providers range from small private blogs through to large information websites. Content can include the written word, videos and audio podcasts. Content providers tend to develop large streams of visitors by providing large amounts of content that perform well in search engine results. They make money from selling advertising or related products. The most successful blogs perform well because they have associated e-books, videos/DVDs and tutorials for sale.
  
  

Online Publishing

• Online publishers include online and print magazines, book-building sites and traditional publishers. A magazine website will earn money from advertising and unit sales, less money paid to contributors. Book publishers earn money from direct sales of their books either on their site or on the site of a book retailer, and then pay royalties to the writer. Self-publishers can take a larger slice of their book's income, but have to pay for their own advertising and book production. E-books are a cheap alternative to print books, and there are a growing number of platforms and devices that can publish e-books and online magazines.
  
  

Hosting and Cloud Computing

• Hosting companies provide the software and technology for an individual or company to run a website. Hosting companies require a large number of servers in order to provide the bandwidth to host websites. Many hosting companies allow individuals to create their own reseller companies. Cloud computing companies own vast numbers of servers and rent server space out to large companies or game providers; these online businesses save other businesses from having to build and maintain their own servers.