Ten years ago, many managers of small professional practices were wondering if they needed their own company website. Many still get by without one today, but most consider a website essential for practice development. Doubts about whether to have a website seem quaint now. Ten years from now, the issue of whether to engage in the “Web 2.0 conversation” will seem quaint.

How the Web Was Won
Web 2.0 refers to the new version of the World Wide Web, which is more collaborative and “user-generated” than the previous version. In the early days of the Web, content flowed mainly one way: from websites to users. Web 2.0, also called the social Web, enables users—people with no web programming skills, HTML knowledge, or website development experience—to create content and form communities of content creators. In fact, Time magazine named such users (“You”) its Person of the Year in 2006. Instead of flowing one way, online content now flows every which way and back again—it’s a conversation.

Web 2.0 marketing tools include social networking sites (like Facebook and LinkedIn), which let you build your personal, professional, or company profile online, and connect with other site members to build relationships, share referrals, educate each other, and form virtual communities. Social media sites make it easy for anyone to publish original content, including news (Newsvine), information (Wikipedia), photos (Flickr), videos (YouTube), and user-generated content of all kinds on blogs (Blogger, WordPress), micro-blogs (Twitter), specialized wikis (Wikispaces, PBwiki, Google Sites), and forums (Google Groups). All of the above media (the ones in parentheses) are free of charge and easy to use. And there are many more of them.

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