Earlier this week I talked about the need to extend explicit invitations to people about participating in the Web 2.0 world. Although many of us have fully embraced the social networking and interaction that is typical of this new evolution of the Internet, a huge number of people still see the Web as a passive form of entertainment rather than as a place to interact.

For this week's Web 2.0 Wednesday, we're going to use Web 2.0 tools to create an invitation to newbies to participate in the online conversations.

Some potential ways to do this:

• Check out Sarah Stewart's Voice Thread Commenting Guide for her blog and then adapt it for your own.

• Record a podcast or video explaining to newbies how to join online conversations--maybe some of the rules of the road or ways to expand their social networks. You can do this via a blog post, too.

• Get into digital story-telling--tell the story of a new user (maybe yourself?) and how he/she joined the online conversation.

• Create an invitation with photos that you can send out via email. Remember--most newbies are still using email as their primary mode of online communication, so you need to meet them where they're at.

Keeping in mind that new people feel uncomfortable about randomly joining online conversations, be sure that you focus on creating something that's inviting to new users. It should help them feel welcome online, and maybe show them how they can feel more comfortable in this new iteration of the web.

As always, tag your creation with web2.0wednesday and bookmark it with the same tag on del.icio.us. You can also leave a link to your newbie invitation in comments here.

Have fun with it. Web 2.0 Wednesdays is low pressure learning!