In 2008, a wonderful collection of new communication tools took off, and although they are fantastic resources, and can be great business tools as well, they are seriously wasted if used passively.

Twitter has well and truly arrived and is fast becoming a must-have tool for every blogger, internet marketer and small business owner. While it’s a wonderful way to connect with people, if you aren’t careful, you may lose your best marketing channel.

Facebook is the leading social networking application available today. The generation just below me (the teens and early twenties) are so connected with Facebook, they choose to communicate through it rather than email. Think about that for a moment.

You can’t afford to ignore Facebook, yet like any social network, it takes time to maintain and leverage your profile and networks, so, if you aren’t careful, you may lose your best marketing channel.

These are just two tools, the leading two social media tools in my opinion when it comes to business purposes, that demand your attention. You might also spend time building a stumbleupon profile, or keeping up your Digg time so you sway some power there, or perhaps you have a MySpace profile to upkeep, or maybe video is your thing and you’re actively monitoring all the latest YouTube developments while keeping your own profile fresh with videos.

I haven’t even mentioned reading the leading blogs in your industry and staying up to date with news articles. Thanks to Digg and similar sites you can easily find what the crowd considers the best content, but that only increases the pressure you feel to read it so you don’t become out of touch.

Let’s not forget the oldschool resources that still claim some of your mindshare - books, magazines, trade publications and print newsletters. While “traditional media” face stiff competition from newer forms of information sharing and publishing online, there’s still much value to be found in reading the old fashioned way.

Plus I have launched my E-Book on how to generate more web traffics to your website. It could be your turning key to online money success if you follow it right.

Simply put, in 2008 there were more tools, resources, articles, reports, books and e-book, news feeds, magazines, tweets, and free tips like this blog coming your way. You could have know all these development, but let me remind you don’t get distracted from the all-important action steps you should be taking to build your business.

So as not to be hypocritical, let’s admit that we all contribute to this problem. I’m doing it right now by publishing this article. I will keep posting to this blog for many years to come, with a steady stream of content, that while valuable to some, adds more noise to an already very noisy world wide web. I will release free reports this year, publish videos, blog, tweet, update facebook, upload photos and like any good net-citizen, make comments, post in forums and sent emails.

Cheers!

Macgyver Sham

Internet Entrepreneur