A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET TECHNOLOGYevolution of technologies and communications approaches which have grown in impor-
tance since 2004–5. The main characteristics of Web 2.0 are that it typically involves:
Web services or interactive applications hosted on the web such as Flickr
(www.flickr.com), Google Maps™ (http://maps.google.com) or blogging services such as
Blogger.com or Typepad (www.typepad.com);
Supporting participation – many of the applications are based on altruistic principles
of community participation;
Encouraging creation of user-generated content – blogs are the best example of this.
Another example is the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com);
Enabling rating of content and online services – services such as delicious
(http://del.icio.us) and traceback comments on blogs support this. These services are
useful given the millions of blogs that are available – rating and tagging (categorising)
content help indicate the relevance and quality of the content;
Ad funding of neutral sites – web services such as Google Mail/GMail™ and many
blogs are based on contextual advertising such as Google Adsense™ or
Overture/Yahoo! Content Match;
Data exchange between sites through XML-based data standards. RSS is based on
XML, but has relatively little semantic markup to describe the content. An attempt by
Google to facilitate this which illustrates the principle of structured information
exchange and searching is Google Base™ (http://base.google.com). This allows users toTable 1.3Applications of different Internet tools
Internet tool Summary
Electronic mail or e-mail Sending messages or documents, such as news about a new product or sales
promotion between individuals
Internet Relay Chat (IRC), These are synchronous communications tools for text-based ‘chat’ between different
Instant Messaging (IM) users who are logged on at the same time. IM from providers such as AOL, Yahoo!
and MSN has largely replaced IRC and provides opportunities for advertising to users
Usenet newsgroups Forums to discuss a particular topic such as a sport, hobby or business area.
Traditionally accessed by special newsreader software, but can now be accessed via
a web browser from http://www.deja.com(now part of Google – http://www.google.com)
FTP file transfer The File Transfer Protocol is used as a standard for moving files across the Internet.
FTP is still used for marketing applications such as downloading files such as
product price lists or specifications. Also used to upload HTML files to web servers
Gophers, Archie and WAIS These tools were important before the advent of the web for storing and searching
documents on the Internet. They have largely been superseded by the web which
provides better searching and more sophisticated document publishing
Telnet This allows remote access to computer systems. For example, a retailer could check
to see whether an item was in stock in a warehouse using a telnet application
Blogs Web-based publishing of regularly updated information in an online diary type format
using tools such as Blogger.com or Typepad
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) An XML-based content distribution format commonly used for accessing blog
information
Podcasting A method of downloading and playing audio or visual clips for portable devices such
as the iPod or MP3 players or fixed devices
World Wide Web Widely used for publishing information and running business applications over the
Internet, accessed through browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari
and Opera