Yesterday American Express released beta version of the new OPEN Forum, designed for the small business owners to network and exchange ideas, thoughts, stories or simply toss questions to the community. There are two reasons I'm writing about OPEN Forum today. First and most important reason is that a platform is phenomenal, it really brings forum on a new level. In my earlier conversation with Mr. John Tatar from Vroom Research Group, I confirmed that forum is "Web 3.0 ready."

There are multiple innovative and intuitive features never seen in the "forum world" before. Conectodex is a feature that allows you to request connection with other vendors you may be using in the future, similar to Twitter the recipient can eider accept or ignore connection. Another great feature is that users can fill up bio, corporate descriptions, add employees and images to its own profiles.

Currently, forum covers 7 important topics: Innovation. Lifestyle, Managing, Marketing, Money, Technology, and The World. All topics in addition to the forum postings are filled up with videos and articles from witch some end up in a spotlight section as well. The greatest thing is intelligent article search categorization feature. Website graphics are also fantastic, great style. This is such a improvement in comparison to old OPEN Forum, with much more content than on the old version of the site. Truly, community oriented platform to help you grow your business.

Earlier I said there are two reasons I'm writing this, a second reason is that I'm honored to be invited on to the OPEN Forum Advisory Panel, by Mr. Tatar who runs a research department for American Express. This advisory panel involves us in further development of the forum, improvements and reviewing existing elements in order to make experience more enjoyable to community users.