The new generation of web users expects more than just a digital brochure. They – we – aren’t even satisfied with a reasonably attractive site promoting a reasonably useful product. The internet has evolved into a community-based entity. It’s not enough to be user friendly. You’ve actually got to be friends with your users.

Enter the business blog, in all its shiny Web 2.0 goodness. Blogs give a much-needed friendly face to the anonymity of the internet. More importantly, they offer a connection. Which would you rather read – a polished press release, or a note from the CEO? I guess a better question would be: a note from the CEO, or a play-by-play by the chick in cubicle 6? Because maybe you wouldn’t want to buy something from the CEO, but that chick sounds just like your best friend from high school, and she just said the funniest thing about her boss, and hey, there’s an RSS feed. And viola – the seed is planted.

But how social is too social? At heart, I’m still a 90s sort of girl. Keeping a blog where clients can see it? What if I get Dooced? (Then again, Dooce now supports her family with her blog, so maybe that’s not so bad.) No one wants to click on a company blog and hear about someone’s sick grandmother or latest trip to the mall – yet, surprisingly, some businesses blog about just that.

Here’s the thing: there’s human, and then there’s too human. Learning about the inner workings of a company is interesting; learning about the inner workings of someone’s love life is voyeurism. (Unless you’re blogging about a dating service; then it’s interesting and voyeuristic.)

Finding the right balance of personal and professional is hard. You’ll hear all sorts of advice about identifying your target audience and using the blogging phenomenon to market your business, but if you’re thinking in marketing terms? Your blog will most likely fail. People know when they’re being solicited. A blog isn’t the right place for a sales pitch. Talk about your what you do, sure, but save the selling for the product page.

Readers of your blog are looking for one of three things: information about your product or service, information about your area of expertise, or entertainment. Of the three, entertainment is the hardest to achieve. Don’t try to be clever. If witty repartee doesn’t come naturally to you, stick to what you know. Write about what your product does. Write about what your product doesn’t do. Write about the day-to-day operation of your business, or the cool new thing you’re working on, or the problem you’ve just solved. Respond to feedback and leave feedback of your own.

Above all, make your readers feel like they’re part of the experience. People are much more likely to use your service if they “know” the people behind it. It’s all about connections.

Social internet is nothing new. I remember back in the late 80s logging in to a weird little text box on my boyfriend’s homemade computer and having a hesitant, typewritten conversation with a bunch of computer science guys at UCSC. Ah, IRC.

Things have changed a lot since those days. The internet is no longer the domain of thick glasses and pocket protectors (I believe they call them “emo kids” now). Everyone is online, and they want you to know about it.

Friendster and MySpace jumped on the social networking bandwagon early, sure, but then del.icio.us came along and made social bookmarking ubiquitous. Flickr! did the same for photo sharing. Traveling? City Guides are so last year. Check with your friends at TripHub or TravBuddy for the up-to-date community traveling recs, complete with ratings, custom blogs and forums. (These aren’t endorsements, people; they’re examples.) Need a tutorial? Don’t just Google for it; check Pixel Groovy to see what’s gotten the most grooves. You can even share tippling recommendations on Cork’d, a new site which promises to do for wine what Flickr! did for photos.

Social web services are evolving. We no longer just want to share; we want to take credit for our contributions. We’re inviting friends and family to be part of our online community and integrating feeds of our latest recommendations into our blogs (because everyone has a blog) and letting our opinions be known about everything we can. Conversely, we’re seeking out the opinions of others before we commit to a purchase; from megasites like Amazon and Target to tiny internet boutiques, ratings and reviews are playing an increasingly crucial part in closing a sale.

The next generation of business websites needs to take the socialization of the web into account if it wants to be relevant. It’s no longer enough to include a Better Business Bureau link on an e-commerce site to let people know the business is legit; customers want and require a friendly, easy to use ratings system as well as a place to add their own reviews. An old-fashioned links page doesn’t cut it anymore; dynamic link lists say a lot more about a company’s interests and affiliations. And the sought-after linkback isn’t going to come from a modest text request; we want buttons, we want clever, gimmicky mini-apps, we want graphics and a catch-phrase (see Pixel Groovy’s “Groove This” or Ma.gnolia‘s “Snap Mark” as examples).

Most of all, we want easy. Instant gratification is the hook that gets people interested; give us a quick, simple way to interact with your site and people will at least give it a try, whether it’s a subscription button or a clever bookmark or a slick product demo. It’s the same principle as kindergarten; be friendly, and people will like you. No one wants to play with the site that doesn’t play back.

Next week: Blogging, and why it’s good for business. Kind of.