The other night I went to the Festival of International Journalism here in Perugia and in particular to see the presentation, “The Internet is Participation”…Twitter, Facebook and the like: which instruments are used to create a dialog with readers?  The panel consisted of two Italian experts and one American, John Byrne, Director of Businessweek.com, which is the online version of Business Week, the principle american magazine dedicated to the world of business.

During the discussion, which was dedicated primarily to the internet and the world of journalism, I was thinking how vast the internet is and how is it possible for a person who manages a small business to understand and use the net in the right way.

In my opinion there are many people extremely fascinated by the internet, of which I am one of those.  Yet I have difficulty finding information that amongst these proponents that is easily translated into useful, simple language that can help a small business grow.

If you use the internet in your business, how do you exploit its capabilities?  Do you consider the net to be useful or just too confusing to bother?  If you have had success, say with the net in general or Facebook, etc., could you share with us your experiences and how it helped to develop your business?