The often used term Web 2.0 is said to be all about social-networking sites, that is sites where users interact with the site owner (blogs) or with each other on community/networking sites. In other words while the initial dot com bubble focused on ecommerce, current Internet businesses tend to focus on building communities, for example the online networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook.

But the value is not just in networking, it’s in satisfying a social need, for example one of the forgotten successes of the first dot com bubble is the dating website many of which have made millions of pounds worth of profit and still do so today. Other sites bring communities of gamers together to compete in their favourite online game or even to play a traditionally offline game such as poker.

It’s worth considering what community or niche interest group could you build a community site for? You’d need contacts within that community, ideally to be a member of the community yourself so you understand the desires and needs of the community. Then ask yourself how can you offer them a better service than they have now. Could you make a community website that is free to join? Could you offer more members with rapid growth? Can you provide unique content that is valuable to that community?

Once you have this loyal community you can then generate your revenue by selling advertising on the website (marketers love to buy advertising slots targeted at their exact audience), placing affiliate links on the site, by offering a ecommerce site alongside the community, but charging for membership of the community or even by selling the business as a whole.

This post is part of my Internet business opportunities series.

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