Rather than my normal question and answer fare, this week and next I want to look ahead. I have often said that this is an amazing time to be an entrepreneur. Trends and tools have combined to allow small business people to do more than ever in history. So here then are my Top 10 Trends in Small Business, 2007.

No. 10: Web 2.0: The first time I went online, in 1997 or so, I remember thinking that the Internet seemed to be nothing more than a giant Yellow Pages, as the only thing there seemed to be able to do online then was to read homepages of various businesses.

In the few years after that, the Internet boom occurred and businesspeople of all stripes tried to figure out how to monetize the Web (yours truly included, with a truncated attempt to create a legal supercenter I called “Lawtropolis!”) A few of these entrepreneurs were successful, like Jeff Bezos with Amazon.com and the folks over at Yahoo, but many were not.

But the story, happily, did not end there. We are now seeing the emergence of what has been called Web 2.0, and it is great news for the small business person. The novelty and nervousness of buying online is now gone and e-commerce has exploded. One example: According to the Internet retailers’ industry group IMRG, Christmas sales this year were up 50% over last year.

Whether is selling to consumers or businesses or affiliate marketing or e-services or whatever, there is no shortage of ways to expand your business online, and now is the time to do so.

No. 9: e-Marketing Trumps Traditional Marketing: A correlation to Trend No. 10 is that the continued emergence of the Internet means the continued devaluation of traditional advertising sources. The days when you could simply buy a television advertising package, for instance, and expect results is waning. Tivo for one is making that obsolete. Satellite radio is doing the same in radio.

In comparison, online marketing is booming. Small business advertising is the backbone of the Google empire, and a main reason small business people like it is that they pay only for qualified leads (or clicks as the case may be.) Google didn’t become Google by accident. Savvy entrepreneurs are moving a significant portion of their marketing online.

No. 8: Little is the New Big: With all due respect to Seth Godin, I have been discussing this trend for a few years now, and 2006 is the year when we saw it come to fruition. The latest statistics show that there are now at least 20 million microbusinesses in this country, and by some estimates, the number is much higher.

These businesses are fed by the ever-increasing, powerful, technological tools being made available to small business, as well as the growth of microbusinesses worldwide (See Trend No. 5 next week, The World is Getting Even Flatter.)

The trend extends beyond types of businesses into products as well. Small products like the iPod and the Mini Cooper similarly indicate that little is the new big.

No. 7: Say Hello to the New Consumer: There is a sea-change occurring in who our most likely customers will be. For the past generation or so, the Baby Boom generation grew into middle age and businesses large and small worked at tapping this generally affluent, consumer-driven, huge market. But the times, they are a ‘changing because the demographics of this country are changing and you may well consider changing with it.

First off, the Boomers are starting to enter, if not old age, then late-middle age, as the first wave begins to turn 60. That’s a market. Their children, Gen Y, is a sophisticated, computer-savvy, independent-minded bunch. Another potentially lucrative market. The final piece of this new market puzzle is the growth of the Hispanic market.

According to a Washington Post story last year, “Hispanics accounted for about half the growth in the U.S. population since 2000, according to a [new] Census Bureau report.” In addition, “The new census figures paint a portrait of a Hispanic population dominated by the young: Half are under age 27. By comparison, half of non-Hispanic whites are over 40.”

No. 6: Fragmentation is Changing Everything: There are hundreds of television stations available to you right this very minute, hundreds of regular and satellite radio stations, as well as a multitude of Podcasts, downloads, uplinks, and billions of websites. The television networks are losing power and market share because information is now readily available 24/7 in a variety of formats. Information is fragmenting, as is business: Millions of small businesses around the globe have become international business thanks to the Internet.

It used to be that you had to be a huge corporation with a corresponding corporate budget to be a major business player, but not so today. Today, anyone with a computer, Internet access, and a good idea can tap this fragmented universe.

Next week, the Top 5 Trends in small business.