Gooood news for entrepreneurs

Some years ago was just impossible to get easy and free access to a huge number of professionals from all around the world. In our days technology breaks that barrier and lets the "business networking" to be a simple and easy job.
I'm talking about portals on the Internet that makes business networking possible. I know 2 of them and I really recommend them:

1. Xing

1. Linkedin

In both cases the membership is free.
The principle of the sites is to be able to see profiles of persons and their interests. If some of them looks interesting for you then you can invite them to join your network. Of course you can invite also to all your existing base of customers, providers and friends.
The effect is really interesting because each of your contacts will have also their own contacts and they will be able to see your profile and eventually invite you to be a direct contact with them as well. That means that as more contacts you have better possibilities of knowing more people.
Both services are very well designed and they avoid spam. I never received a message that wasn't interesting for me.

In the case of Linkedin there is a new service called "Answers", it is something similar than the Yahoo Answers service but the benefit is that you get answers from adults and in most of the cases especilists in different topics, very cool!

Xing is also interesting because it lets you participate and create "groups". There you can create forums and also communicate with the members of it using newsletters. You can use the group's home page from your web site or link it from your email signature, that can be very useful if you need to communicate with partners or providers with a reliable service and great security functionality.

NOTE: It is important in both cases to be an active member and to keep your profile with current information. There are millions of persons participating so it is not so easy to be contacted "just like that". My advise: invite all your contact list! that will also help you to keep your contacts online... so if your computer crashes... you have them also online :)