Dave had a post a few days ago about how there’s opportunity in any industry once you start to dig beneath the surface of what’s happening. Along those lines, here are a couple of tidbits I found fascinating:

The WSJ Online has an article (username/pw required) about how Bank of America is offering credit cards targeted at illegal immigrants in an effort to get more of the Hispanic segment. Regardless of your position on the politics of this you have to admire the business thinking behind this.

LOS ANGELES — In the latest sign of the U.S. banking industry’s aggressive pursuit of the Hispanic market, Bank of America Corp. has quietly begun offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers — typically illegal immigrants. …

Bank of America defends the program, saying it complies with U.S. banking and antiterrorism laws. Company executives say that the initiative isn’t about politics, but rather about meeting the needs of an untapped group of potential customers.

I also saw a post this morning on the “Unusual Business Ideas that Work” blog about an DePrice.com successfully making money in software affiliate sales by creative traffic acquisition and affiliate discounting.

“I started DePrice.Com in December of 2004 with 9 dollars,” says John. “As an affiliate, I didn’t need any inventory. I simply signed up with several vendors, got permission to offer discounts out of my own commission, created a simple website and started selling software, using forums, Froogle, search engines, etc. The very first month I’ve sold about $2000 worth of software, clearing $500. Next month, I tripled my profits. Last year, Deprice averaged $17,000-$20,000 in sales a month. This January our sales are up 20-25%.”

The post goes on to describe how by focusing on popular titles, and using his own commission to end up with the lowest available price for an item, DePrice was able to get customers talking about the site and get cheap traffic. Hats off to John Gromovski for figuring out how to make money in this segment of the affiliate market.

In general, I completely agree with Dave. No matter what industry you look at, there are people winning by creating value for customers. At the end of the day, you have to find a way to do this profitably. The key is to find an industry you’re excited about and then dive deep.