It's always interesting to watch the coming and going of Internet marketing trends; watching concepts become popular, saturate the market and then tail off. Wouldn't it be great to be able to 'get in on the ground floor' with some of the emerging trends and sell bandwagons instead of jumping onto them with everyone else?

Perhaps, what you need to do is to look at past examples of popular concepts and consider how you could have spotted them. A couple, for example:

Article Directories

As the realisation of the search engine/link popularity benefits of syndicated content was spreading across the Internet, many Internet marketers were hungry to have the next Ezine Articles or Article City under their belts as a viral tool that could power their own websites forever more.

Anticipating this demand, savvy marketers created article directory scripts to satisfy the needs of would-be editors, just like those tool makers who supplied pickaxes and shovels during the gold rush.

I've witnessed at least half-a-dozen different products all offering their own flavour of article directory and the prices of such scripts has fallen dramatically. Now, article authors have a very wide choice of directory to submit to with many serving very specific niches.

Interestingly, this boom of article directories has created a new type of service; automated article submission to multiple directories e.g. iSnare.com.

Yet another example of perpetual Internet marketing!

Pixel Advertising Websites

Ever since Alex Tew's Million Dollar Home Page hit the headlines, millionaire wannabes have been emailing advertisers with their own take on the concept. Without the originality and the media attention, the real money makers are the suppliers of pixel advertising websites. Again, another great example of how to take advantage of a trend by supplying tools for those who wish to follow it.

So What's The Next Big Thing?

Maybe it's not the very next thing, but creating software products that solve people's problems or gives them what they want is always going to be a big hitter. With some of the product that I'm seeing at the moment, creating your own software application is going to become a lot more popular in the next 12 months. Already, people are selling guides to making your own software application to sell to other people