WEB is a WEB!!!

The world is no longer a global village, but a global family. The information is at the finger tip. In this, most of the credit goes to the developed information and communication technology (ICT). It refers to a broad field encompassing computers, communications equipment and the services associated with them. It includes the telephone, cellular networks, satellite communication, broadcasting media and other forms of communication. Internet is a part of it, which is now so much popular in the world. According to The Federal Networking Council (FNC) in United States the term "Internet" is defined as following;

“Internet” refers to the global information system that;
(i) Is logically linked by a globally unique address space based on the Internet protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons;

(ii) Is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and

(iii) Provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein." (http://www.nitrd.gov/fnc/Internet_res.html)

The Business Dictionary (Online) defines internet like this in detail.
A means of connecting a computer to any other computer anywhere in the world via dedicated routers and servers. When two computers are connected over the Internet, they can send and receive all kinds of information such as text, graphics, voice, video, and computer programs.

No one owns Internet, although several organizations the world over collaborate in its functioning and development. The high-speed, fiber-optic cables (called backbones) through which the bulk of the Internet data travels are owned by telephone companies in their respective countries. The Internet grew out of the Advanced Research Projects Agency's Wide Area Network (then called ARPANET) established by the US Department Of Defense in 1960s for collaboration in military research among business and government laboratories. Later universities and other US institutions connected to it. This resulted in ARPANET growing beyond everyone's expectations and acquiring the name 'Internet.' The development of hypertext based technology (called World Wide web, WWW, or just the Web) provided means of displaying text, graphics, and animations, and easy search and navigation tools that triggered Internet's explosive worldwide growth” (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/internet.html)

According to Oxford dictionary World Wide Web is;
“A widely used information system on the Internet, which provides facilities for documents to be connected to other documents by hypertext links, enabling the user to search for information by moving from one document to another”
Thus the difference between internet and World Wide Web (in shorten form Web) is; the Internet is a massive network of networks, a networking infrastructure while the web becomes a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet, simply a way of information sharing. Marshal McLuhan a scholar of communication says technology expands our experiences, which has now done by Internet and Web for an instance we experienced the 9/11 attack by sitting at our home.

Anyhow when it is consider about the history of internet, it is said Net was produced in the period of cold war. The U.S.A air force in 1962 was with the need of transforming information safely and quickly around the country even a given area was destroyed. So this made the birth of internet. Thus in 1969 the U.S. military wired six University supercomputers while in 1970s smaller colleges linked their computers to the backbone sites while in1980s corporate research departments linked to public network facilities. In 1980s Private commercial networks and global links brought the net everywhere. Thus internet is a concept with “network with networks”

In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee created the hypertext technology that became the World Wide Web. He wrote a software to serve, dish out, information from connected computers, and a “client” program that was, in effect, the first browse. He also sparked the development of Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, which allowed anyone with modest amount of knowledge to publish documents as web pages that could be linked to other pages anywhere in the world. (Gillmor 2006, p.11-12)

Thus the development of the web was the key technology that popularized the Internet around the world.
CREN continued to develop the web as an academic tool, but by the end of 1992 only 26 hosts were serving website, growing slowly to 1,500 by 1994. The boom in the web (and internet) usage came that year when Mark Andreessen, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, developed a graphical web browser, Mosaic, and then left to form a new company, which was became Netscape Communications (Whittaker 2009,p1)
In the book “Producing for Web 2.0-A Student Guide” it is said that more people that before started to use personal computers because of the reasons such as decline in price of PC and the launch of a new operating system, Windows 95. And with the launch of Internet explorer 4 in 1997 as a part of Windows Operating System Microsoft started to pursue the new market.

Thus the use of internet can be sum up like this generally;

• For information
If it is consider about internet and web it was first formed for the purpose of sharing information as mentioned in the previous paragraphs. Thus we share information and news via internet immensely and it has become a controlling power of world now. The use of internet in seeking information was highly proven with the 9/11 attack internet in U.S.A did not work for sometime due to high traffic in information seeking. Today it is called “information age”. Through internet documents, images, videos and much more can be found. Thus the news organizations today tend to distribute news via internet much; in the book “BLUR- How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload” it is said;
“In a decade, we shifted to people having access to news and information virtually anywhere anytime.”
“In 1994, Yahoo began, and Reuters made the decision to offer its news virtually for free. In 1996, Microsoft and MSNBC launched MSN.com. By 2000, Internet pioneers like MSNBC editor in chief Merrill Brown were talking about major shift in the patterns of news consumption online”
“The internet was allowing consumers to more easily gravitate towards news, information, goods, and services tailored to individual interests and one’s (very exact) geography” (Kovach and Rosenstiel 2010, p.22, 23)
Today we can use online libraries, webinars (online seminars), search location, share information via the strategies like Google doc, and there are thousands of websites providing information in different ways.

• For entertainment
Purpose of entertainment is also so much popular within internet. Watch movies and downloading, listening songs and downloading, play games, and connecting all those things via a website like “My Space” is interesting.

• For education
Today internet has become an ideal platform for education. Someone can do even a degree course via internet by registering to a university. Thus online courses, different interactive online lessons are so much popular with the users. So sharing knowledge is a huge advantage of internet that makes the world much more open.

• For communication
Communication is also a main purpose of internet. E-mailing, chatting, social media, instant messaging are main ways of communication that are becoming cheaper and user friendly, even surpassing other communication methods.

• For business purposes
In the book (pdf) “3G Marketing on Internet” by Susan Sweeny it is said that;
“Businesses are using the Internet to get leads, sell their wares, provide customer service, market their business, and more. A recent study by well known hosting company Interland (http://www.interland.com/) uncovered that 69 percent of small businesses defined the Internet as critical in driving business. In that same study, almost all companies said the Internet is very or somewhat important to driving business”

(http://www.free-ebook-download.net/business-book/17896-3g-marketing-inte...)
Thus e-advertising, online payments, online banking and much more can be seen under this.

• For development and disaster management
Today the technology is used for the betterment of the human race immensely. The web is used for the development of the countries much. Development in knowledge and vocational training is a main use of web, while it is also used for the economic development. Then disseminating information of disaster management, and mobilizing aides and much more are done through web. Recently the information of famine in Somalia is disseminated via web while asking aides, and it was so popular in the web.

References
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