It doesn’t seem that long ago that watching a video online was a painful experience. Often it wouldn’t work at all, and when it did the picture was tiny and distorted.

Now, thanks to new technology and fast broadband, online video use has exploded. And with popular websites like YouTube, videos get shared amongst social networks and become viral, creating a buzz.

The future trend is for much more video on websites, including small business websites. You can use video to tell your story, make a sales pitch, and create a buzz around your product or service.

With the upcoming rollout of a national broadband network, internet television, or IPTV as it is known, will start to replace regular TV. Unlimited online channels, including many in high definition, will be the new standard.

Get ready for the new frontier of online video!

Here’s what happens when I Google “Arrowsmith Websites Maleny”:

Google provides a map and details about my business! That’s great, thanks Google!

When you do a location specific search on Google, often you’ll get a map and business details. This handy feature is even more useful when you are using a mobile phone to search for a business or service in an area you’re not familiar with.

Google your business and location and make sure your business is listed in this way. If not, you can add it using the Local Business Centre.

If your business is already listed, Google may have found your details on your website or a directory website and listed them for you. If so, you can correct the listing and add more information, even photos.

With Google becoming the main way people look for products and services, this is a simple and free thing you can do to help potential customers find your business.

One of the recent developments that have come with faster broadband connections is an increasing prevalence of software that runs over the internet, rather than being installed on your computer.

Non Cloud – Most people have used Microsoft Word or other similar office software products. You create documents on your computer and save them on your computer.

Cloud – With Google Docs, the software is installed on Google’s computers, and the files are saved on Google’s computers. You log in using your browser (internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari) to create and edit documents.

Also known as ‘Software as a Service’, the term ‘cloud computing’ comes from schematic diagrams of computer networks, where the internet is drawn as a cloud.

Some advantages of cloud computing are:

• Low cost – the software is generally free to use
• No upgrades are required – the software always up to date
• Automated backup – if your computer crashes, the files are accessible online
• Collaboration – many users can work on the same document, no need to email back and forth.
• Flexibility – You can work on the document from any location with Internet access, even your phone

Word processing is one example of cloud computing that you can start using immediately. But you can do almost all your computing in the cloud – email, accounting, customer relationship management, ecommerce, project management etc.

There are more than 3 billion mobile phone users in the world, around 50% of the global population. This is forecast to grow to 70% by the end of 2010.

What’s that got to do with websites? The latest phones are mini computers that connect to the internet, so you can visit websites from anywhere. People use the internet to search for everything these days, and local search is the next trend, partly due to the mobility of the searchers.

Online applications such as maps and satellite navigation will retrieve data from your website and include it in search results. So if you’re in a new town a search on your phone for nearby restaurants, you not only get a list of restaurants, but locations, opening times and website links.

Trends such as this make it an imperative for most businesses to have a search engine friendly website.

One of the biggest trends on the Internet right now is Social Networking websites. Sites like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn are so popular that they regularly get mentioned in mainstream media. Heavily populated by Generation Y, the gaudy page designs of MySpace have become something of a phenomenon.

Politicians and pop stars alike have MySpace pages, in an attempt to stay in touch with the new connected generation. And advertisers love the demographic targeting afforded by such sites just as much.

When creating your profile on a social networking site, consider the privacy issue, everything you put on there is available for the world to see. In the future you may be applying for a job, or even just applying for a loan, and it’s possible that your online profiles will be scrutinised.

There’s no doubt that the synergy generated by such a large network is has enormous potential for productivity if used efficiently. But distractions are everywhere, there are so many gadgets to play around with, that it’s really easy to lose big chunks of time just exploring and playing and not really being productive. The time wasting factor is enough for some workplaces to ban the sites altogether.

So in order to reap the benefits of being so connected, but not wasting too much time, set limits or goals when using these sites. If you lose too much time, set yourself a time limit, or set a task that must be completed, such as introducing yourself to four people in your industry.

So, business productivity tools or time wasters? Both, depending on how they are used, but one thing is certain, they are here to stay, and they will continue to grow and diversify.