Small Online Business and the Future of the Web

It's almost end of the year, and now is the time to take stock of what happened to your business this year. It is also the time to look for possible opportunities or positive changes that your business can take advantage of next year. Part of this process is understanding what is happening in your industry.

If you are doing business online, Morgan Stanley's presentation at the recently concluded Web 2.0 conference entitled "State of the Internet" looks at the direction where the Web is going.

Here are some of the trends of the Internet that small and home-based businesses can consider:

• Online advertising is going to continue to grow
• Increased emphasis on targeting and conversion improvements
• Video is going to be big; how content creators can benefit in terms of monetization of videos is still unsure
• The business model of Skype may be worth considering: offer the main product free, but monetize add on or premium features
• Consider local advertising
• Think how your business can benefit from the growing community/social media such as Wikipedia or MySpace (should your business have a MySpace page or can you find a way to create a page on Wikipedia that will not be construed as spamming?)
• Start thinking of reaching the mobile users
• Consider reaching the international markets, such as translating your site into different languages

The subtitle of the presentation "The World's Information is Getting Organized + Monetized" summarizes it all. Read the PDF version of the Morgan Stanley presentation