The Web As a Means of Giving Consumers a Voice

Prior to the advent of the social networking sphere, you had to have a substantial amount of money to share your content on the Web. To establish a web presence, you needed to hire a savvy web developer and a knowledgeable graphic designer. You also needed a domain name (approximately $70/year), and most importantly, web hosting space. That’s why, until the turn of the century, the only professional websites were ones owned by companies. Few individuals really had their own personal web spaces.

In the past several years, however, numerous things have changed. First, social sites emerged and gave us the ability to create our personal space on the Internet. Not only that, those social sites let us connect with others who had common interests or backgrounds.