Future of the Internet

Internet. In today's world, almost everything is about the Internet, be it for work or leisure. Everything is easily accessible via the world wide web, and it has been so integrated into our lives that most of us can never imagine living without it. It seemed as if one would be handicapped if the Internet is down or inaccessible, and I totally agree with it. This is because with school work, registrations needed to be done via the Internet, one could imagine how inconvenient it will be if one is unable to get connected to the system.

As more and more people are getting comfortable with the existence of Internet and also satisfied with it being able to provide great convenience and accessibility, Internet now, can not only be accessed via laptops. It has also been integrated into mobile phones (SmartPhones), televisions, home appliances, etc, providing an unprecedented, nearly uniform level of integrated data communications.

Furthermore, with the high level of Internet usage today, Singapore has also catch up with this trend by installing island-wide wireless services which can be accessed to all Singaporeans in soon to come. There are 2 great advantages to such infrastructure:

1) There are no infrastructure start-up or maintenance costs other than the base stations

2) It allow users to stay connected even though they are at the other side of the island. Furthermore, users get to access faster services at vastly lower costs.

In addition, with the fast-paced city life that we are in, everything is about being fast and efficient, and thus not missing out having a high speed Internet connection. Most of us should have experienced being grumpy or frustrated when the Internet failed to load or get connected as fast as we expect it to be. As one always says "Time is Money". Every minute seemed so precious to us that everything around us has to be highly effective and efficient.

Therefore, to ensure its efficiency, the Internet 2 Project has been established.

Internet 2 Project

It is the consortium of more than 200 universities, government agencies, and private businesses collaborating to find ways to make the Internet more efficient and faster.

Their primary goals are to:

1) Create a leading edge of very-high speed network for national research community

2) Enhance revolutionary Internet applications

3) Ensure rapid transfer of new network services and applications to broader Internet community.

and the benefits of this project:

1) IP multicasting: It enables efficient delivery to data to many locations of a network

2) Latency Solutions: diffserv assigns different levels of priority to packets depending on type of data being transmitted.

3) Guaranteed service levels: Ability to purchase right to more data through network at guaranteed speed in return for higher fee.

All these might sound rather good and I do agree that it is a great help in increasing our working efficiency, and also allowing us to be more reachable and accessible as we move from place to place.

However, in my opinion, it might indirectly result in certain negative impact in terms of a person's development. As mentioned earlier, when one is exposed to a highly efficient environment, anything that moves slower than it is supposed to be, would result in one getting impatient and frustrated, and this is one problem that many city dwellers now would have faced. Hence, imagine if the future generation were exposed to an even more efficient technology, what would they become? They might forget to slow down or stop to appreciate some beautiful things around them. Everything is about time, efficiency and money.

Thus, the future of the Internet, its improvements, is it really a good or bad thing?

Usefulness of Social Networking sites for Business

In today's era, online shopping is the current 'in' thing, as one does not have to step out of the house, and go to a physical store to purchase items that one wants. Instead, with a click of the mouse, and after payment is being made, the item would than be delivered to one's home after a few days. Furthermore, with most of the younger generation being technology-savvy, online shopping seems to be staying in trend. Besides, most people would have an account to the social networking site be it Facebook or Friendster. Thus, setting up business via the social networking site is not an impossible task, and it could be rather useful.

This is because not only can one save up the cost of renting a physical store in one of the malls, one could also save up on the advertising fees. The only thing that one has to do is to set up a profile page, make it available for everyone to view, add a few personal friends, and they would than be your "advertisers", who would than introduce your profile page to their friends, perhaps through their "Wall" page, which is available on Facebook. After which, those who are interested or curious can simply enter your site with a click of the mouse, since it does not require much effort. Hence, if you are lucky enough, you might than be able to launch your first business deal if any of your friends, or your friends' friends are interested in the items that you are selling. Moreover, you could also add those users as your friends even though your might not know them. This might then increase your chances of having your profile being viewed, as you had already captured their attention.

In addition, as mentioned frequently, Internet is a powerful tool as it could make something be known quickly. Thus, if one were to make one's profile page available to everyone, those who are frequent social networking users might than just enter your site while going through the other users' profile pages. Therefore, they might once again be your potential customers.

Moreover, if these online customers find your items nice or useful they might introduce your site to their other friends. As mentioned earlier, most people now are technology-savvy, thus when they are using the Internet, they might just decide to pop by your site to take a look at the items that you are selling as it is easily accessible and does not take up much of their time.

However, there are of course disadvantages to it. This is because as mentioned the site can be reached by a click of the mouse, meaning that there are competitors whom are also just a click away. Therefore, it is important to make your profile page and items attractive enough to retain customers. Furthermore, the duration of the popularity of a social networking site is unpredictable. Thus, if a social networking site suddenly lose its popularity and most users move on to the other more popular site, one could actually lose his or her customers.

An example would be Friendster. Friendster used to be one of the more popular social networking site before Facebook started replacing it. Therefore, before that there were actually businesses done on the webpage of Friendster, and it seemed rather successful as one could see business deals being made through the comments made on the comment board of Friendster. However, when the Facebook trend started to rise, most users began to abandon Friendster and started using Facebook. As such, the businesses started on Friendster might began fail and be forced to close down. If not they would have to move on to the other sites such as blogspot.com or livejournal.com, and also to inform their customers about it so that they would continue to frequent their "shops". If not they might be easily forgotten as there are many other online shops around.

Bebo.com

Bebo.com is currently ranked as the 3rd most popular social networking site.
Just like any other social networking sites, it contains all the basic profile and networking features available in the other websites, such as the photobucket, comments board, instant messaging,etc.

Surprisingly, although Facebook might be ranked as the most popular social networking site, it has a lower percentile of users under the age of 18 in comparison to Bebo.

In my opinion, Bebo works very much the same way as Facebook, or Friendster, thus i feel that there is little difference in terms of its usefulness. This is because it is just another site for people to connect and stay in contact by adding he or she to one's friends list in the profile one created.

However, if one will to compare, I feel that Facebook would be a much better site in comparison to Bebo.

The reason why I say this is not because I am a Facebook user myself, but rather due to the way the page is organized. In my opinion, the way the Bebo profile page is organized is rather messy in comparison to that of Facebook's. For instance, it has the quizzes, comments, blogs sections all in a page, thus one might have to look through carefully to know what exactly are the stuff that are featured on that page. This is because even the headings are too small to notice if one were to just scroll and glance through the page. One might just notice that the profile page is filled with words.

Although Facebook might contain the same features, they are separated and located in different pages, therefore, it makes it easier for both users and viewers to locate them.

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3827076787

The above link is the access to one of the Bebo's member profile, which is opened to the public. Thus, one does not have to be a Bebo member to view his profile, just like that of Facebook. From his profile, one could actually make the comparison and see the contrast on how the page is displayed compared to Facebook.