Over dinner, I had a flash of insight.

I understood what my ‘problem’ was.

And so, I don’t profit from trends I notice and explore far ahead of a crowd.

I first started blogging in 2001. By 2003, I was convinced this trend was catching fire. At that time, I wrote a ‘blog book’ (”a book on blogs that’s itself a blog”) called Blog Profit Ideas Exposed.

That was one of the very first ebooks about profiting from blogs - and I still remember the flack I caught from ‘hard core’ bloggers during Blogathon 2003 for daring to suggest it was ok to make money from blogs!

It has sold a little over 800 copies until now. And 1 BILLION blogs later, there are still some of the 33 blog profit ideas that NO ONE is using effectively or leveraging maximally.

Surely that’s FAR ahead of the curve?

But before blogging got popular, I was off studying the new fad on the block - RSS feeds.

Again, I wrote some of the earlier ebooks and reports on RSS marketing. And remember discussing exciting uses of RSS with people who were already experts, like Rok Hrastnik and Pakii Pierce (this was in 2004).

By the time blogging and RSS was gaining traction in the marketplace, I was already involved in another huge trend I caught on the upswing… niche marketing, and monetizing niche minisites with Google Adsense.

Some of my best-selling products in 2004 and 2005 were packages of ready-made niche minisites which people could plug-in their Adsense codes and start promoting.

But by the time thousands of people were ready to buy these instant minisites, I was already up and away following the next trend - unique content. PLR article memberships. Article modification systems. And outsourced solutions for people wanting them.

This lasted a year - and just as PLR became the popular trend, my interest had already shifted to social bookmarking, and another 6 months later, to social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter (which I was a relatively ‘late’ adopter of, getting on only in July 2007).

And guess what?

Now when FB and Twitter are catching the attention of many people in my niche, I’ve lost that edge of excitement in teaching about it!

(In fact, thinking about John Reese’s email today titled “Twitter Marketing” is what sparked off this line of thinking. In it he says: “I think Twitter is going to really evolve into a must use marketing tool.” That’s a conclusion I reached 9 months ago!)

That’s my problem!

I cannot get excited about teaching something that I consider ‘old hat’ or a rather established technology or system.

I cannot justify charging $97 or $297 or (as I see many people doing) even higher prices to teach what is essentially basic utilization of these technologies… or worse, sheer theory and imagination masquerading as ‘tested and proven’ results.

Yet there are many people on my list who still wonder what a blog is, why blogging is so widely recommended, and how to set up their blog.

In moments of introspection and reflection, I wonder how things might have been if I had stuck with teaching about blogging and RSS marketing since 2003.

Even if I had moved on to niche marketing and content creation, then sticking with them for the last 4 years could have given me pre-eminent positioning in those areas.

Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites are becoming more visible as avenues of traffic, sales and relationship building. Even now, if I could stay excited about them, I’d profit wildly.

But that’s just not ME. (See my ‘problem’?)

I could have been the ‘blogging guru’.

Or the ‘RSS guru’.

Or the ‘niche marketing guru’.

Or the ‘content guru’.

Or the ’social marketing guru’.

But I’m not.

If I were to choose a label, this one would fit best…