The new year is around the cor­ner. It’s a time for res­o­lu­tions. A time for change. And some­times, those changes need to be drastic.

On Decem­ber 16, 2009, while we con­duct our reg­u­lar weekly webi­nar for our Suc­cess Chef stu­dents, we will be mak­ing a major announce­ment about rad­i­cal changes we’re mak­ing to our cur­rent busi­ness model…

… Changes that not only affect our stu­dents but also might affect the Inter­net mar­ket­ing train­ing indus­try as a whole.

So we’re open­ing up this live class to the pub­lic for the first time. For this one time, we’re invit­ing every­one who wants to join us on this webi­nar, and not just our pay­ing students.

These changes might sur­prise you. Or shock you. They even might make some peo­ple mad. But they must be made. And together with Sylvie Fortin, author of the con­tro­ver­sial Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins, we will be announc­ing those changes on that spe­cial webinar.

The rea­son is sim­ple — but it’s not what you think. We’re not sell­ing any­thing new. This is not a typ­i­cal pro­mo­tional or sales pitch webi­nar. It’s a spe­cial announce­ment, one we’ve been itch­ing to make for a very long time. All I can say is, “It’s about time!”

We recorded this very brief video and wrote this open let­ter to explain.

Back in late 2006, what started out as a New Year’s series of pre­dic­tions of sorts osten­si­bly became one of the most down­loaded, most con­tro­ver­sial, and most talked about doc­u­ments in the his­tory of my career.

It was in keep­ing with that annual Jan­u­ary tra­di­tion, where a plethora of blog­gers flood the Inter­net with their pre­dic­tions about online trends, emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, Inter­net flops, grow­ing indus­tries, rumored takeovers, ad nauseum.

But I’m no futur­ist by any stretch. I’m a copy­writer by trade.

But I’ve seen some tremen­dous changes, mostly “behind the scenes,” and I wanted to join in the tra­di­tion. Par­tic­u­larly, I wanted to share not only some­thing I was pas­sion­ate about, but also some­thing I knew was going to affect online copy in sig­nif­i­cant ways.

Now that sev­eral years have passed, I’m astounded by how true my pre­dic­tions were…

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It’s New Year’s Eve, so I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy New Year. Thanks for your con­tin­ued read­er­ship and sup­port in 2008. Your return vis­its, your com­ments, and your sub­scriber­ship are greatly appreciated.

New Year’s is a time when we make res­o­lu­tions. But res­o­lu­tions are often bro­ken. Instead, I pre­fer to set goals, with the sole res­o­lu­tion to meet them. What are my goals for 2009? It all boils down to three sim­ple words…

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I couldn’t talk about this when I first learned about it, but now that it’s pub­lic I wanted to pass the info along.

You may or may not know Julie Perry.

She’s a very dear friend of mine, a well-​​known Inter­net mar­keter, and an entre­pre­neur. We con­stantly see each other at sem­i­nars and always have a great time. She’s always laugh­ing, fun to be with, and a great person.

If you can’t pic­ture her, to help you here’s a photo of the both of us — you might have seen her at Inter­net mar­ket­ing sem­i­nars, yourself:

She’s known for her love of boats. She’s writ­ten a book on yacht­ing, and she’s also the host of The​Boaters​.tv, a web­site for yachters and boat lovers.

Now, the sad news…

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New York was just fan­tas­tic! Rhonda and I were at a party with a friend of mine in the pent­house — with a patio! — of a tall hotel com­plex in the mid­dle of Man­hat­tan! We could see every­thing that was going on.

On one side, we saw the ball drop in Times Square, and on the other we saw the fire­works at Cen­tral Park at mid­night. It was absolutely breath­tak­ing! Here are some pic­tures we took.

(Click the thumb­nails below to enlarge.)

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