(The subtitle is "And how it could work a little bit better." More on that later.)

I'm a Catholic convert, which means that while I grew up in a Christian family, I didn't come to the Catholic faith until I was an adult. And it means that I never really learned the disciple of prayer. I'm on a constant search for tools to help me in my prayer life.

A few months ago, I found the Loyola Press web site and their 3-Minute Retreat. The 3-Minute Retreat is an online flash presentation that begins with calming your mind, then presents a scripture reading and reflection. It ends with words for a prayer and a suggestion to add your own refection or intentions. Peaceful music plays in the background.

Offering the site is only the first part of what Loyola Press is doing right. Because most of us would find it difficult to remember to visit every day, the clever folks at Loyola offer a daily email reminder. I signed up, so each morning there's an email message with a link to the 3-Minute Retreat web page. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, it feels a bit like God Himself coming to me.

Here's why I think Loyola really gets how Web 2.0 works... They know their audience. They've created great content that meets their visitors needs. And they provide a permission-based method to automatically engage in their content.

The only potential stumbling block -- and this is how I think they could do just a little bit better -- is the sign-up form asks for personal information that it's not necessary for this purpose. It looks like they have included the 3-Minute Retreat sign-up as part of their general customer registration process, which is a bit off-putting. To their credit, I haven't received anything from Loyola other than the 3-Minute Retreat reminders so they definitely honor their privacy settings.

What can other web developers learn from what Loyola Press does right? Envision what your visitors really need and how you can help provide that. Make it easy for them to participate, and provide tools to automate their participation whenever possible.

The lesson for visitors (like most of the folks out there on the web) is to look for web sites that truly engage you! Those are the sites that will be worth visiting again and again.