Web 2.0

Blogging, Social Networking (eg sites like the ubiquitous Myspace and Facebook), Web 2.0, Social bookmarking (like del.icio.us and digg). It seems that they're taking over the web (and have been for some time now, in fact the "next big thing" is probably already in the pipeline and if you don't know about it then you've already missed the boat), making some people lots of money and keeping others entertained.

Blogging

The explosion of blogging has made web publishing available to the masses and these days everyone who's anyone (and someone who's no one) has a blog it would seem. Blogging allows a lot of content to be published quickly and easily, even by those who have little or no knowledge of building websites. Blogs can grow rapidly and be updated daily, sometimes even more often.

Of course quantity doesn't necessarily mean quality but as the old adage goes, if you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters (or these days it would have to be laptops) eventually you will get the complete works of Shakespeare. There are now apparently 109 million personal blogs on the web.

Amongst the blogs about goldfish (try a search for goldfish blog in google, there are nearly 2 million results and that site is number 3!) or people's experiences punting on the river cam, there are also some gems full of useful info. For example, here's a blog about how to make money from your blog. It's very long (over 7000 words), so make yourself a cup of tea and pull up a comfy chair before starting to read it. Apparently that site makes $1000 a day. We haven't read it yet, we suggest you do as Cash Ninja is not making $1000 a day so we clearly can't tell you anything that he can't!

Or (and this one is for grown ups only) recently featured on a Channel 4 documentary Girl with a one track mind Abby Lee's (real name Zoe Margolis) sex blog that was so successful she got a book deal out of it. Unfortunately she also got 'outed' by the British tabloid media and was unable to retain her anonymity.

Social Networking

News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch) bought Myspace for $580 million in 2005. We're not suggesting that you try to set up the next Facebook, although there's nothing to stop you trying. However, if you go about it the right way, using social networking sites is a great way to bring targeted traffic to your blog, affiliate site, content site, ecommerce site, whatever other way you're trying to generate money. Remember, you need to bring in the visitors to generate the income (well you've got to get them to click your ads, affiliate links, donate or buy your wares first) and if you can find those in your target audience via these sites then all you have to do is bring them to your site.

Social Bookmarking

By submitting your articles to these sites (or having the option for other people to when they read your articles) you can potentially expose them to millions of other readers, should they get sufficient votes to bring them to the fore. However sites like this can be a double edged sword as you have no control over how your site is portrayed or the accuracy of the information. Of course they do say there's no such thing as bad publicity. There is also the problem of a small number of influential users controlling a disproportionately large amount of the content. Either way, you can potentially get awareness of your site to a large volume of visitors very quickly, just be aware of the possible downsides this can bring.