I just read this report on social networking, and it’s a pretty interesting read. It’s about how people use the internet for social networking - that is, to keep in contact with close and not so close friends.

A study was done on how internet use is impacting how people keep in contact with others. You’ve probably heard the fears that online networking was destroying people’s ability to interact with people face to face. This report finds no such problem; in fact, people who go online often have larger networks of friends and continue to use the phone and see people at about the same rate.

What I found most interesting in this report at a business level was how commonly the internet is used to make decisions. It says that 45% of Americans say that the internet played an important or crucial role when making one of eight decisions the report covers.

However, 5% found bad information. Fortunately, 57% found the internet to be the most important source of information.

I think there’s some good food for thought for online businesses in this report. It’s always good to know how people view the medium in which you are communicating with them. Are your visitors in the disgruntled 5% or the pleased majority? Even if you are focused on selling rather than information this applies to you.

The amount of growth online indicated in this report is quite encouraging as well. There are far more users online now and more of them have broadband connections, which tends to encourage greater use of the internet.

You may also enjoy some of the other reports on the page I linked to above. There might just be something on your target market that will help you build your business.