3. Marketing your hobbies

Crafters, photographers and artists also are tapping into the Web's potential as a marketplace for their goods.

Notley Hawkins, a fine art photographer from Columbia, Mo. started selling online by uploading his photographs onto Flickr, a popular digital photograph storage Web site.

Flickr subsequently partnered with Imagekind, a Web site that specializes in selling fine art prints. Since then, Hawkins has sold about 50 of his prints through Imagekind.

Hawkins has found that having a Web site and selling photos online helped to enhance his reputation offline. He says his online presence helped him gain credibility with area travel magazines, for which he does freelance work.

"It's helped my career in many ways," Hawkins says of Imagekind. "It's helped me make some money, which is very important."