The Internet

The Internet has had a profound affect on the world of computers. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates claims, “The Internet is pervasive in everything we’re doing.” The Internet also has assumed an increasing prominence in the world at large. Today, the letters “www” seem an omnipresent part of advertisements on buses, billboards, and magazines.

The Internet, as it is known today, was born in 1983 when ARPANET was split into two interconnected networks: ARPANET and MILNET. The size of the Internet doubled when NSFnet joined the Internet in 1986.

The Internet has proven to be a reliable means of transmitting data. Occasionally, however, transmission problems do occur. For 30 minutes in the spring of 1995, all of the traffic destined for MIT was sent through a small wire in Florida, a situation described as equivalent to routing all of the flights bound for O’Hare to a driveway.

Accessing the Internet

National ISPs include AT&T, Earthlink, and WorldCom. Two popular OSPs are America Online (AOL) and the Microsoft Network (MSN). Some online services supply specific types of information. For example, Dow Jones provides financial and business news, and Imagination offers games and entertainment. WSPs include GoAmerica Communications, OmniSky, and SprintPCS. The role of WSP is expected to grow. Industry analysts predict that by 2003, more than 60 million people will use wireless Web-enabled devices to connect to the Internet. The CEO of Amazon.com goes even farther, projecting that in 10 years all Internet connections be wireless.

Although most ISPs charge a standard fee for dial-up access, to attract users (who view advertisements on an ISP’s home page) some ISPs now are providing free service. Following this lead, a California-based DSL recently advertised free, high-speed Internet access (a service that usually costs $50 a month) to users who agree to ads aimed at their demographic group.

URLs

On a Web page, a link is a built-in connection to another related Web page or part of a Web page. A link can be a word, phrase, or image. URLs make it possible to navigate using links, because each link is connected to a URL. When you click a link, the Web site or document associated with the URL is displayed. Some people refer to this activity of jumping from one Web page to another as surfing the Web.

URLs are registered for a standard fee (usually about $70). To acquire an appropriate URL, some companies are willing to spend a great deal more for a URL that already has been registered. Recently, eCompanies paid an entrepreneur $7.5 million for a Web address. This more than doubled the previous record – Compaq’s purchase of altavista.com for $3 million.

Searching the Web

The World Wide Web is an incredible source of information on almost any topic. There are almost 2.5 billion Web pages. Exploring this vast reservoir for the answer to a search engine user’s query, which usually is expressed in just a few keywords, is a daunting task. No wonder an engineering head at AltaVista described search engines as a combination of “wizardry and witchcraft.”

Often, simple search queries yield an overwhelming number of results. This is attributed to several factors:

The limitations of search engines. A query about mustangs on the American plains might produce results involving Southern Methodist University's football team and the Ford car.

The nature of queries. While a traditional researcher, such as a librarian, uses queries averaging 14 words, the typical Internet query is just over one word.

The creators of Web pages. Developers of commercial Web pages sometimes distort results by repeating frequently requested keywords in the background, where spiders see them but people do not.

Despite these difficulties, search engines are among the most popular sites on the Web. When choosing a search engine, experts suggest that novice users, and users looking for obscure information, turn first to the larger search engines (AltaVista, Yahoo!, Lycos, and so on) because they are easiest to use and cast the largest net.

Types of Web Pages

Advocacy Web pages established for political candidates, called “e-campaigning,” has become an important part of politics. Surveys show that more than 50 percent of Internet users turn to the Web for information about political topics.

Business/marketing Web pages used for shopping on the Internet are increasingly popular. In 1999, 17 million households shopped online. This figure is expected to grow to 49 million by 2004. A survey of back-to-school shoppers 34 years old and younger showed that 17 percent planned to shop online for their children’s school needs. Perhaps more significant, only 6 percent of surveyed shoppers reported being uncomfortable with buying on the Internet.

Educational institutions frequently publish informational Web pages. Today, most colleges have Web sites that offer course descriptions, information about the student population, and registration costs and deadlines. When shopping for college, surveys show that high school seniors use the Web more than catalogues or guidebooks; about 80 percent of college-bound students start looking at college Web sites as sophomores.

News Web pages are the most popular Web sites among Americans with access to the Internet. Although these Web sites often are associated with newspapers, magazines, television stations, or radio stations, some are published only online, without a related print or broadcast media.

Portal Web pages often offer the following free services: search engine, news, sports and weather, free personal Web pages, reference tools, shopping malls, e-mail, instant messaging, newsgroups, and chat rooms. The dictionary defines a “portal” as a door or gateway. Portal Web pages are gateways to a host of services.

Personal Web pages sometimes use Web cams to provide minute-by-minute views of life in a dorm room, an apartment, a new-born baby’s crib, or even the inside of a refrigerator. One devotee of these personal Web pages says visitors often develop a sort of “relationship” with the Web page developer. Perhaps this observation is true; some personal Web pages receive more than 1,000 hits a day.

How Web Pages Use Multimedia

Multimedia can bring a Web page to life, increase the types of information available on the Web, expand on the Web’s potential uses, and make the Internet a more entertaining place to explore. Because Web pages with multimedia take longer to download, most browsers allow users to turn off some multimedia elements (such as graphics) and show a text-only version, speeding the display of a Web page.

Choose a topic for a Web page, such as your school or your class. How could multimedia enhance the page? What multimedia elements would you use? How?

Webcasting

Some people use Webcasting to download copyrighted material, such as music, from Web sites. Many young, unknown musicians see music Web sites as a way to gain exposure, but some already-popular musicians see sharing music on Web sites as little more than theft. The heavy metal rock band Metallica sued Napster (a music Web site) for copyright violations. A number of colleges have placed a ban on music Web sites. These schools maintain that students downloading and sharing music creates a tremendous amount of traffic, clogging the school’s computer systems. As a result, the schools are using filtering software to deny access to music Web sites. Several student groups have formed to protest this response.

E-Commerce

Today, more than 50 percent of Web sites are commercial. Online product sales total more than $6 billion, which represents a twelve-fold increase in just five years. These numbers should be kept in perspective – in 1999, e-commerce still represented only 0.5 percent of U.S. consumer spending.

Business to consumer e-commerce often allows buyers to purchase directly from businesses, eliminating the middleman and thus providing goods and services at lower costs. Other advantages of e-commerce include:

·         Twenty-four hour access

·         Global presence

·         Two-way communication

·         Decreased costs

·         Lower product display and storage costs

·         Reduced salesperson costs

Businesses advertise with their own Web site or on another company’s Web site. The most successful Web advertisements are on popular sites, such as search engines. In terms of audience, advertising on the Web is expensive. The cost to reach 1,000 consumers is about $75 on the Web, $60 in a newspaper, $44 in a magazine, and $5 on television. Yet, Web advertisements do offer advantages:

Unlike traditional media advertising, which is passive (and often ignored by the audience), Web advertising is interactive. The audience expresses an interest in the product by clicking a hyperlink and choosing to view a Web ad.

For many products, Web users are the ideal customers. Web users tend to be students or highly educated consumers in their late 30s, with average incomes of about $55,000.