A million people are a million different and distinct individuals, each with his or her own talents and aptitudes. Revealing the best work at home opportunity means catering to many factors - ease of entry, learning curve, universality, level of expertise required and how attractive the job is in the first place.

It isn't as hard a task as you think - the internet has provided work at home opportunities for a long time, and just looking at the popularity of a certain method - with numbers reaching hundreds of thousands proponents - we can then identify the best work at home opportunity.

Affiliate marketing programmes have been THE method of the digital age to make money at home.

A quick search on the internet will reveal thousands of affiliate networks, affiliate programmes and corporations recruiting affiliate managers to handle their range of merchants (and their products/services).

I rate it higher than direct marketing (tele, fax, digital, web) because after spending years dabbling in both, I've found that affiliate marketing requires the same tools, hard work, an eye for design and copy that sells and attracts and knowledge of the product. Direct marketing is great, don't make the mistake of thinking it isn't, but since affiliate marketing allows for multiple streams of incomes, a greater product representation and a wide range of payment methods that you can utilise depending on your comfort and support levels, I would call it the best work at home opportunity.

It is simple in theory, though its application requires work and constant back checks. You are the proxy between the merchant and his product/service. Either by driving volumes of customers to your own website (which sells the merchant's products), or driving traffic to the merchant's website (where you can get paid per sale, for example), this is the essence of affiliate marketing.

How you do it is entirely up to you, and the internet is filled with channels that can be utilised to advertise and drive traffic.

Action forms, list building, websites, article marketing, blogs, forums, newsgroups, viral marketing - the list is literally endless and a good affiliate manager will use as many channels as possible. Pay per click is also available, and can generate large amounts of traffic, but remember it is an added overhead, so ensure that your balance sheets are in favour of profit rather than expenses.

Payment can come in many forms, but the most common is profit sharing, where a percentage of the product's sale goes to you.

I wouldn't say it is the EASIEST work at home opportunity. But with its potential to open multiple revenue streams with a range of product representation, the dynamic and distinct ways anyone can use the internet to drive their affiliate marketing efforts, the proliferation of more and more products going 'virtual' and the fact that anyone with some sense of selling can enter - makes it the best work at home opportunity in the 21st century.