As a successful online marketer, I am always studying other marketers and trends to see how to best service my customers and gain new ones with innovation. We live with an ever changing internet that has gone through many facelifts over it’s 20 or so year history.

Let’s go back in time….

See, back in the 1980’s, when we all used Apple IIe’s and Comodore 64’s the internet was a Bulletin Board System or BBS, where people dialed in on a dial-up modem… 300 baud, 900 baud even 1200 baud (rich kids) and all we did was chat. We interacted, we talked, we shared games (warez) and we connected from many spots locally as well as nationally in chat rooms.

Then in the 1990’s when AOL birthed their vision of an internet, it was segmented into many catagories for people to hang out in and network, socialize and connect. And if you wanted to surf the web with the “web crawler” you could go there, but there was not ‘much’ out there yet.

In the late 1990’s it was all about the HOMEPAGE. Yep, everyone wanted to build themselves a website, go out and try to sell something. Everyone wanted a peice of internet real estate out there and went buying up domain names and getting into position for an economic boom that was about to generate billions of dollars in online revenues, not for the ISP’s who seemed to control everything up to that point, but for the start up Internet Infopreneurs who saw the landscape of the Wild Wild West and it was ripe for the taking.

eBay evolved into probably the first big social network, where people all over the world bartered for goods. People could leave feedback, make comments and trade at prices that were well below wholesale.

Playstations and Xboxes also put people together in virtual worlds to fight together or wage war against one another and people would spend hours upon hours leveling up characters and doing dungeon raids all for virtual booty, that gained bragging rights for the day.

We went through a few Dot Com Busts, and Dot Com Booms over the last 10-15 years and I see the internet now as reversing itself. It is all about the social media and social networking now, more than ever.

Products are cropping up faster and faster about how to tap into traffic from these Web2.0 type sites.

People are not so much yearning for new information as much as they are yearning for new and more relationships. Dating websites are extremely popular. Talk about a membership site model that is monetizing the masses at $20-$30 a month with subscriber bases of hundred of thousands! People are willing to pay this money for one reason and one reason only…. TO MAKE A REAL CONNECTION…. TO FIND TRUE LOVE… TO FIND TRUE RELATIONSHIPS.

Now, these sites and social networking and media is not new to us, it’s been around for 5 years or so, but more people are coming to the internet to come back to the roots we had back in the 80’s.

They are coming here to connect. They are looking for relationships, friendships, and interaction with others. And social media sites, helps foster the dynamic of a group or pod of people united around a common interest or service.

People are voting on Digg. People are joking on Fark. People are sharing leads on Linkedin. Adults are sending friend requests on Myspace and it’s more popular now with OLDER people than the younger people as they discovered new business could be found on sites that are more popular now than GOOGLE!

Video is all the rage, as people love watching people, then interacting with them with media that is “social”.

It seems like everyday, a new social media/networking/bookmarking/voting site comes out with its “unique” play on the game.

Why?

They want to build sites with deep roots in relationship building and connecting. PLUS… They want a super sticky site where they can create demographics which can attract the big dollars of advertisers.

Yes, you can still slap an adsense box, text link or advertising banner on a blog or site and make money in that realm too… The banners are NOT dead folks, people are still clicking on ads, like they always have.

That’s right, look at Facebook. Extremely popular now. It’s trying to get into the advertising game. What was just a school kids networking site is now even involved in the political debates. Is growing so fast, its more popular than Google.

The advertisers are looking to get in there and tap that market for product sales and build brand images.

But all this comes back to what it is that humans really deep down want to feel and that is to feel loved, liked and connected.

It’s not about the solo website anymore.

Don’t sit there and think you gotta build a website and a website will be your savior. It’s about building communities and connections. It’s still about people, cause people buy from other people, not just cold corporate websites. People buy from people that they know, like and trust.

Remember that.

Another cool phenomenon is the MeetUp. Sites like Meetup.com are taking people OFFLINE to build bridges and connections FACE TO FACE! Wow, imagine that. I am using meetup right now to make tons of new connections as well as new business. It’s working like a champ. I’ll have more to say about that later…

Remember we are still a BBS world. We can translate languages instantly on the fly with a push of a button, we can reach out and find new customers, new dates, new friends, and new spouses at the flip of a few keys.

Folks, the internet is reversing, and it’s fine by me, as we’ll continue to grow into communities of connected people where all kinds of business and relationships take place.

Go to this space. Help make it better and you’ll see your business and personal relationships grow and flourish into new heights.

What are your thoughts about all this web2.0 stuff and social networking?