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Over the past decade, I’ve had the pain and pleasure of being in the trenches with web developers, starting and growing businesses and promoting and profiting from the Internet. That’s what mrewin.com is about. Some of the content you will find here is history, some of it is theory… but all of it is Internet related.

In the fall of 1996, as a sophomore in college, I became fascinated with the Internet. It was new, it was bright, cool and flashy. I would spend hours in the computer lab, figuring out how to make my homepage on Tripod do new things. Keep in mind, at the time, web architecture was very, very limited. No PHP. No MySQL. Search Engine optimization was restricted to repeating your target keyword phrase over and over again. So within this context, “doing new things” to my homepage meant making text blink, using Java-Script mouse-over effects on my navigation and so forth.

I was at a liberal arts college (Denison University) at the time, with no hope of studying something new and specific like New Media or something of that sort. I was however, able to get my hands on a few small contracts and before I really new it, had defined my career within that first year.

Shortly thereafter, I transferred to Ohio State (B.A. Economics). While I studied, I was also able to get a job as a web developer with UK based ISP, Lyford Group. After a year or so, the company expanded in Columbus, and I found myself hiring and managing a team of developers. This was at a time when doorway pages and duplicate content weren’t as frowned upon; but times have changed.

By this time (2000), I had exposure to design and programming but had not had the opportunity to get into the marketing side of the Internet. My role in Lyford had expanded into marketing by now and we had a great team, including search analyst John Carcutt, among others. Lyford was marketed primarily online via link trading, SEO and participation in early PPC (Pay Per Click) programs like Brain Fox.

I had always been fascinated by running businesses and had some strong influences with friends and family in business, but it wasn’t until 1998 or so that I had some real hands on exposure to starting and operating businesses, specifically with affiliate programs and web development services. In 2002, 6AM Media, a web development company, was formed and I left Lyford to operate that business. At first, I was the business: programming, designing, book-keeping, everything (which, is not a great suggestion by the way, but was necessary at the time). Over time, we grew. First, we had a book keeper. Then, we hired offshore and subcontract talent to assist with design. As time passed, we added more staff and services. Sales, Project Management and so forth.

In 2004, H2oh Hosting was launched and operated along side 6AM Media. I started company started with a single shared server. As with 6AM, we had a formula for marketing and provisioning services. The company grew. A second shared server, then a third… then dedicated servers were added. The company grew well in a short period of time via online advertising, SEO, Resellers and an affiliate program. Eventually, the company was sold and is now still in operation. I owe the owners a debt of gratitude for allowing me to do something as fun as selling a company, and hold them in high esteem.

I spend a good portion of my days now writing and developing a new project, which will be launched shortly.

About the name.

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away I owned the domain joshewin.com. As more and more of my writing was published on other websites, the domain name joshewin.com was no longer needed and was not re-registered. Well, it was not re-registered by me. A domain holding company now owns the domain and plugs text ads on it. They can have it, at least for now. So, that is how we have the domain mrewin.com.