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Infopreneur is a person whose primary business is gathering and selling electronic information.^[1] This term is a neologism portmanteau derived from the words "information" and "entrepreneur". An infopreneur is generally considered an entrepreneur who makes money selling information on the Internet. They use existing data and target an audience.

The term is often used on the Internet. The word infopreneur was registered as a trademark (USPTO) on February 1 1984 by Harold F. Weitzen. In 1988, H. Skip Weitzen published "Infopreneurs: Turning Data Into Dollars" (John Wiley & Sons).

Before the explosive popularity of the Internet, at the turn of the millennium, such an occupation already existed. These legacy inforpreneurs sold their information in other mediums such as audio tapes, audio CDs, CD-ROMs, videos, talk shows, and conferences. The classification of infopreneur has created a new style of business on the Internet, which allows anybody with a computer and an Internet connection to start a businesses by publishing information that may appeal to a specific market.

There are generally two kinds of infopreneurs: those that sell information they have amassed on their own and those that earn commissions from selling information that they know nothing about. The latter may be considered more of a "information trafficker".

[edit] Online publishing

As the infopreneur is his/her own developer, marketer, producer, and distributor - some infopreneurs consider themselves being in the publishing business. Unlike in traditional print publishing, the infopreneur puts down, in electronic form, what he/she knows from experience or what he/she learned and passes them on to the world through publishing on websites, blogs, ebooks, emails, etc..

[edit] Blogs and advertisements

Information traffickers do consider themselves infopreneurs. After all, they are making money out of information. Many of them utilize the power of the World Wide Web - creating web sites and blogs to act as their storefront.

The infopreneur may attract traffic to his/her site by manipulating their site to appear higher on search engine results.^[2] This may be done by creating a site that is robust in information, and configuring META keywords and descriptions that accurately describes the web page. But often, infopreneurs that are out to get a "quick buck", will create a mash-together of information by publishing popular, sought after content, often incorporating RSS feeds from more popular sites. The infopreneur then makes money from Adsense ads, affiliate links, referrals and leads, and/or selling ebooks that are related to the search parameters and keywords. Essentially, these infopreneurs "piggy-back" on already established information. For example, there are many such splogs that copy verbatim the articles from Wikipedia.

[edit] References

1. ^ Farlex. The Free Dictionary. [1] (retrieved Sep. 19, 2006).
2. ^ Mann, Charles C. (2006). "Spam + Blog = Trouble". Wired 14 (9). (Online version available. [2]).