The overall design and functionality of websites has changed over the last 15 years or so; from the light-weight, text-only websites of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s to the bandwidth-sucking media rich portals of today; the World Wide Web has certainly matured to better cater to the ever-growing base of internet users. Websites of yesteryear could get away with the “one-sided conversation” approach to static information sharing; simply plopping up a website with text, maybe some flash integration and a pretty design was the foundation of nearly every website on the ‘net. However, today’s internet users are looking for a whole lot more than the info-sites of late; they want personalization and interaction.

For instance, let’s take a look at the monumental success of websites like Youtube.com, MySpace.com and Facebook.com; they all have something in common besides the tens and even hundreds of millions of users that they each boast. That common trait is socialization and personalization.

When a user joins these hugely-successful internet empires they have the ability to setup their own personal pages, create their own personal blog to share their thoughts, chat with like-minded individuals, upload photos or videos and basically interact with a world-wide audience like they are hanging out with some friends in their living room.

These websites are not only catering to the pre-teen crowd and the teeny-boppers of today; presidential candidates, movie studios, television networks, record labels and internet marketing professionals all have made claim to their own chunk of internet-property on these social conglomerates because they know something, something that many of today’s website owners are completely missing. Today’s internet users are socially-minded and they latch onto interactive websites like a white-knuckled toddler refusing to give up his or her favorite blanket so that it can be put in the wash.

Whether you are an internet business owner running a for-profit website or you’re simply a hobbyist looking to share your interests with the rest of the free-world; socially-minded websites are not just a passing phase, they are the very definition of what a website is supposed to be in today’s market. If you stay-atop of the current trends at all, you have undoubtedly noticed that as of late, social-networks and socially minded web applications are in the news, day-in and day-out. Just as the automobile progressed from the rickety wobble-rides of the early 1900’s to the smooth riding and powerful vehicles that we have at our disposal today, the web has progressed from the “one-way conversation” of info-sharing websites to the interactive and personalized experiences of the new and improved Web 2.0.

Now, of course it’s not fitting for a website owner to try and mimic or even compete with these prodigious social-sites; attempts like that will, by and large, fail every time. However, just because you aren’t going to offer your website users the ultimate in personalization and social experience doesn’t mean that you can’t take note of the huge success of these types of websites and create a user-focused experience for your own spot in this digital land.

Creating a personalized and social experience for your website users isn’t all that difficult to implement. It can be as simple as setting up a blog or a topically-focused forum on your website that allows users to comment and share their thoughts, or maybe a little bit of simple dynamic coding that will add a touch of personalization by allowing users to select the background-color of your website and change the font-size to suit their needs.

Whatever small steps you take as a website owner to cater to this socially-minded internet crowd today can help you to establish your online-presence give your digital plot of land exponential growth potential in this ever-expanding frontier of the World Wide Web.