The reason there are so many different ways to use the internet is because we don't have to ask anyone's permission, we can just go ahead and do it. This is why there is only one device for using your telephone line, one device for using the Television NTSC signal, yet there are countless uses of radio, from toy cars to FM Oldies. Like the free radio spectrum, Internet is unregulated, and that means the only limits are in our imaginations ... for better or for worse.

So you've asked a good question, but one where the answer may not be so easy as a formula; because this whole idea of networking the entire planet's worth of people to each other (again, for better or for worse) is totally new, the real hard unspeakable correct answer is

I don't know

... and don't let anyone (not even me) tell you different.

when we work with Internet, when we work with any communications media, whether it is the clothes we wear (fashion communicates) or the car we drive or how we frame the evening news, we do what we humans do best, we start with a basic strategy and then we experiment -- when it works, we do it again; when it doesn't work, we step back, review what we know, and revise our plan.

"So," I hear you say, "if nobody knows squat about it, then why do I need the Guru Gary guy?" -- another good question. Here's some answers:

• experience -- experience is part of it: When you have someone who's been there done that, someone know understands from their own hands and not from some theory found unproven in a book, when you have taiken on your side, you save a lot of the trials and errors; when you employ experience, that means someone else paid for the stupid mistakes, and that saves you money.
• intelligence -- On top of experience, you also need intelligence, both in the puzzle sense and in the super-spy sense, you need someone who is in on what is being tried and cant suss out where the competitive edges might be.
• imagination -- Einstein rightly said it to be the more important quality, you need someone with imagination because, well, because we don't know what is going to work so we're going to have a lot of days of sitting back and trying to dream up of something different.

starting from these three skillsets, we can look at the communication need and set out on planning a strategy that gets the right message to the right people with the minimum misunderstandings, and it is in deciding the what and where of the message where we generally decide whether we're building a sportscar or a tour bus, and whether or not we will want to put a human face on any of it.

stories vs data

All that said, what Bub says here is also true: Sometimes we just want to present facts without any avenue for dialog, such as when we post a table of weights and measures and other cold data. Sometimes we might want to invite dialog, but a private dialog, such as a shopping site where I show you the goods, you show me the colour of your money; this is another cold database thing, the act of strictly business

the art of business

And then there's all those other times, which are most of the times, the human times when we want to learn as much as we teach, listen as much as we talk, and where we realize that we humans do best in numbers, putting our heads together, bringing our needs and strengths into a pool, we all gain far more than the sum of the parts. Every shopkeeper knows this, that's why the shop counter faces into the larger interior of the store (rather than hidden down at the end of a hallway, like the final step in a slaughterhouse).

This is the Art of doing business -- business is conversation: We talk, we chat, we share, we exchange our stories and that whole muddle and mass of every-which-way communicating is the domain of the various kinds of weblogs. If I am making a car, I want to know what customers expect; if I sell beer-making supplies, I want to my customers to know what I have and also know how best to use it, and I will expect some of the older hands will likely know more about my business than I will, so like any smart business person, I'll want to make it easy and comfortable for them to talk, and I will want to listen. There's a saying in the blog world (I probably coined it) that your customers are going to talk anyway, so they might as well do it at your house.

wait ... there's ... more

As you've probably guessed, things get even more complicated because there are certain technical side effects, unintended consequences native to any technology choices, and websites and weblogs are no different, and some of these side currents can also bend people into selecting methods not quite appropriate to their real needs. For example, weblogs have a tendency to dominate Google but only when they are used in a certain way such as when people chronically quote and link other bloggers -- very powerful for certain selective keyword rankings, but before setting out to own the term "startrek bone china" you really need to have a good story waiting for those who bite. In this sense blogs and websites are no different than any other aspect of business: If you don't deliver the goods, word travels fast, and advertising can make a bad product fail even faster. The bottom line for any communications project is always the message, if you have a good message and you can frame it in a media that works with your message, then you're probably going to enjoy yourself.

Clear as muddied water now? :) For those interested, on my business news magazine website, I wrote a very popular essay initially to explain weblogs to professional orgs such as chambers of commerce: A Blog is the Answer (What was the question?).

And thats coming from a pig headed kind of guy ;)