Political Growth Of The Internet

Political Growth Of The Internet

Government Websites

Government websites are those that have a dedicated ending to the domain name, this being, .gov. This has helped with the political growth of the internet because it is a widely recognised domain and has helped to bring countries together.

In the UK we have dedicated county council websites that use the .gov domain. This ending can only be used by official government sites, meaning that the information they hold is known as reliable and safe because it will have been put there by people with the right authority.

This has shown a growth in the internet due to politics because people now use these websites to find out about future events, maintenances, useful links and much more that can be used to help them.

Elections

With the internet, election campaigns have been able to extend themselves to people that normally wouldn't be interested in them. Essentially, they have been modernised to fit in with the current form of communication. The campaigns can now be seen by all ages and by everyone that it might affect, this gives them a larger coverage as they will still be covered by the media. With such large coverage, parties are aided in getting more votes.

As well as this special websites have been set up in the past to keep users up to date with the election, including the seats that have been filled and by which party. This gives a wider coverage that is in more depth and always available for viewing.

Furthermore, candidates for an election can post their manifestos online for everyone in the area to see. This means that you don't have to print them out and waste resources, it also means that more people will be able to have an opinion on the proposed principles.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites have allowed politics to be more dominant on the internet. There are hundreds of thousands of people on at least one social networking site and because of this the events that happen during an election can easily be made public. These can be posted on a dedicated wall and are simply passed around by posting links or commenting for your friends to see.

Many Members of Parliament have taken it upon themselves to try and interact with the community through social networking sites. They do this because it means more people can communicate with them about problems that they have within the area, as well as being able to see opinions or principles from the MP themself.

This has helped with the political growth of the internet because it has expanded the media in which MPs can be contacted through and the way that they can show their personal campaign.

Online Petitions

Online petitions have allowed the traditional format of a petition to become digital. This means that more people can sign it because there are now more people using the internet. A petition can be made public through the use of other facilities on the internet that have also aided the political growth, such as Facebook or Twitter.

These petitions work because when a person signs the petition an email is sent to the designated email address. If a lot of people sign, then the user's inbox is going to quickly fill up, and when hundreds or even thousands of these appear, it is a hard message to ignore.

This has helped with the political growth of the internet because more people have access to petitions, and if news of a popular one gets around then the government is going to take action.

Technological Growth Of The Internet

Technological Growth Of The Internet

There have been many advances in the technology that is now available for the internet, including, Packet Switching, Cloud Storage, Wireless, Mobile Devices and Domain Names.

Packet Switching

Packet switching is a communication method used in digital networking that sends packets of data.

This technology is use to optimise the available channel capacity on a network so the latency is reduced when sending data. The internet is the most famous place that is known for using packet switching.

When the data is put into its separate packages, they are transmitted individually and can take entirely different routes to the destination. After all of the packages that are from the same message are at the destination they are assembled into the original message.

Packet switching has helped to protect information sent across the internet because the data is split up. This has aided the growth of the internet because you can now easily send personal details over the internet, meaning that people are more trust worthy and use the internet for a much wider range of things.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is a type of online storage where data is stored in virtual lockers. You can buy storage from large companies that operate large data centres. There are many advantages of cloud storage.

• Companies or users do not have to install physical storage in their homes or work places as it is all stored by the companies that offer the cloud space.
• You do not have to be responsible for making back-ups or other maintenance tasks, these are carried out by the service provider, this means that you can focus on the work in hand. However this extra work for the providers means that it could be more costly.
• Cloud storage means that you have access to a huge range of resources and applications anywhere in the world from a web interface.

However there are also disadvantages when it comes to storing your data in the cloud.

• The security of the stored data could be a concern when storing personal data because it is in the hands of the service provider, and some people may be able to hack into the data as it is being transferred.
• The performance could be lower than traditional local storage because of internet connections. This could mean that information takes a long time to upload or download.

Wireless

With the invention of wireless internet and mobile devices being able to connect to the internet nearly anywhere in the world has been a great aid the technological growth of the internet.

Wireless internet allows people to connect to the internet without needing to be plugged into a router, this has had great advantages for users at home and work alike since you can have multiple people connected at once and they can be separated equally so work spaces are not crowded.

You are able to fit as many people onto a wireless network, with the sacrifice of bandwidth since it has to be shared among everyone, to counter this you would have to buy faster internet which can be costly. You can also use internet boosters to boost the signal around a large corporation to keep the connection speed constant in the building.

Mobile Devices

A lot of different mobile devices can now connect to the internet too, with more becoming available all the time. These include, Laptops, iPods, iPhones, Smart Phones and Tablets. Not only can you get wireless routers, you are now able to access 3G to have the internet with you on the go.

Because people are now using mobile devices for a lot of their internet access, many website developers are now producing a version of their site for mobile browsing. Very popular social networking sites have adapted to this and are now even more popular as people can keep up to date with what they are doing on the move. 


Wireless internet and mobile devices have aided the technological growth of the internet because they have allowed people to upgrade from just accessing the internet in their own home, to being able to get on just about anywhere they are.


Domain Names

The domain naming system is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers. It translates the requests for a domain name into IP addresses. (Unlike domains, IP addresses are not useful for humans, as they don't contain any information that makes them recognisable.)

These domain names have helped with the growth of the internet because it means that humans can remember their favourite websites by using keywords from the URL. If this technology was not invented then we would have to remember the specific IP address for each website that we wanted to visit.

Academic Growth Of The Internet

Academic Growth Of The Internet

The internet has seen a rise in the amount of available websites and facilities that help towards the academic side of things. With, VLEs, Google Scholar, Digital Libraries and Wiki's the internet is now a rival to the more traditional ways of carrying out research or education.


Google Scholar


Google scholar provides an easy way to find literature that can be used for many different means. From one place on the internet you can search through various sources. This facility allows users to find digital or physical copies of articles and books from academic publishers, professional societies and universities.


By searching for 'the growth of the internet' you receive multiple pages of results with different articles on the subject. There are an array of formats that they come in and also give an option to show articles similar.

Google scholar has helped the growth of the internet academically because it allows people to now search through a huge amount of articles written by professionals. It can be used by anyone for any reason, including, university work, research and much more.


Wiki's


Wiki's are now a very extensive software since their release. The most popular wiki is Wikipedia with over 26.6 Million articles, however there are a lot more that are dedicated to a particular topic, such as TV Shows or Video Game Series.


Even though there are a lot of articles on Wikipedia, they can be written by anyone and therefore are usually viewed as being unreliable. On the other hand, these articles are often updated by people who are professionals in their field and therefore the articles are quite trustworthy.


VLEs


VLEs (or Virtual Learning Environments) such as Moodle, allow teachers and students to communicate, give feedback or post work to each other, this gives them a way out of school hours to keep up to date with work or improvements.

For example, if a teacher gives a presentation during lesson or makes a template that can be used, they can put it onto the VLE after the lesson has finished that the pupils can download and use in their own time. This gives them a much greater source of resources that they can use.


However, even though VLEs may look superb they do have their downfalls. Because you are normally going to be at home when using this type of facility then you are not going to get the physical presence of your tutor and some feedback may be hard to understand without asking them face to face. This can easily mean that students fall behind in their work rather than get ahead of it due to physical restrictions.




Digital Libraries


A digital library is a library that stores books in a digital format and are accessed on a computer. There are currently large scale digital library projects underway at Google, the Million Book Project and Internet Archive.


There are many advantages to digital libraries:

• There are no physical boundaries as the user doesn't have to go to a physical library and people from all over the world can visit the same one and gain access to the same information as anyone else.
• You can use an online library whenever you want as they are online 24/7, unlike traditional libraries which need to close every day.
• The information contained in the library can be used by many different people all at the same time.
• Digital libraries have very simple interfaces that allow for easy searching, and users can use any search term to find the information they want. For example, key words, titles, authors, names or subjects.
• Because the information is in a digital form it can be preserved for a longer time that its counterpart physical copy, as these can degrade after successive use.
• Unlike traditional libraries, digital ones can store a lot more information as they take up little physical space compared.

Online Learning Websites


There are many different websites dedicated to online learning that allow you to further your education in various ways. BBC Bitesize allows people (especially students) to use the resources for further reading and to take tests on specific subjects.


Other websites such as ICS and Open University allow you to take a course online that you can do at home. You can interact with other members taking the same course as you or with a tutor that has been assigned to help you.


This type of academic facility can easily be expanded to help with the growth of the internet because, it could mean that in the future all schooling may be done at home via online learning websites or university students spend most of their time learning this way.

Commercial Growth Of The Internet

Commercial Growth Of The Internet

eCommerce

eCommerce is the buying and selling of products or services online. Over the last 10 years it has become very popular and has developed into something that everybody uses. With the help of large firms such as Amazon, eBay and new technologies such as mobile phones, eCommerce has enabled the average consumer to shop when and where they want to.

eCommerce has both advantages and disadvantages, these are both for the consumer and owner of the online business. The advantages that eCommerce can bring are numerous, if you are a late night shopper then this type of business is definitely for you. You can now easily shop at whatever time you like, as online sites are literally open 24/7.

As well as this, as a customer you have a very wide choice in the businesses that you use for your spending needs. The amount of shops online is vast and you can find just about any product you can think of, which isn’t exactly true for the high street. This means that you can buy everything you need from the comfort of your own home.

On the businesses side of things, an online site is a lot cheaper to host than renting a shop in the middle of town. There are initial start-up costs, and of course the fee for hosting the website and other small payments, but this is far less that having to pay for a physical building.

QR Codes

QR Codes are a marketing tool used by companies all over the world. They can be placed anywhere, from magazines to billboards, to bus stops. All you need to access the information that QR Codes hide is a smartphone or tablet that has a QR Code reader app. This works by reading the black squares on a white background, which gets converted into a URL address or text.

eMarketing

eMarketing is the marketing of products using online procedures. eMarketing is usually sent as offers in an eMail that promotes new products that shops have in stock.

This works with both online stores and shops in the high-street. When you sign up with a store (e.g Amazon) or give your eMail address to a physical shop, then you are put onto a mailing list. This then means that you will get sent eMails featuring items similar to ones you have bought recently or with new products or special offers.

Google Ads

Google is a largely used Search Engine and because of this everybody that has used it will have seen a Google Ad at some point, even if they didn’t know what it was.

Google uses what you search for to find appropriate ads that would seem to suit you. For example, if you search for PC Monitors the Ads will be for the websites: Dell, PC World and Misco.

This type of marketing has aided the commercial growth of the internet, because it means that popular and successful websites will appear as the best places to buy what you want as they are ‘recommended’ by Google.

Online Auctions

Online auctions allow users to bid for items against other people over the internet with millions of different items being available at one time. The biggest and most well-known auction site at the moment is eBay.

eBay is a giant in this industry and it has been said that it will be an unstoppable force that will never be overtaken by any other online auction site. This is thought to be the case because the features that it has are too good to be out done by others. It also has a very large member base and is acknowledged as the best place for auctions by a lot of people.

Online auctions can allow you to save money as you can bid on items, which could mean that you can get a product for less than the original value since you can bid at the last minute.

Geo-Marketing

Geo-Marketing is another new way of eMarketing, as more people are starting to use phones, companies can track these devices and send push notifications to the user dependant on their location. This means that wherever you are you could receive an update which you could potentially not want but something which would catch your attention. For example if the user was located near a Pizza Hut and the users smart phone contained an app to do with this shop, then it could potentially suggest meal deals and updates for the customer. This enables people to advertise their offers without drawing the customer towards premises.

However, there are also disadvantages when it comes to electronic commerce. When using an online account where you have to input your details, e.g name, address and credit card information, you have to be careful, as eCommerce is an easy place where fraud can be committed because your details are sent over the internet.

Also, when buying something from an online shop, you cannot actually get a good representation of what the product is. You may at least, only have one picture of the product, or maybe even a few images taken at different angles. This, I think is especially evident in clothes shopping, you don’t know what the material feels like, or what size it is and you can’t try it on, which can lead to dissatisfactory results when your parcel arrives.

eCommerce Timeline