Week Three: Clear

Internet or World Wide Web?!
I say or because yes, there is a difference! This week in ISM3004, one of the many things I learned and found totally fascinating is that the internet and the World Wide Web aren't the same thing. Actually the World Wide Web, also known as the Web is a service that the internet provides. "While the Internet was developed in the late 1960s, the World Wide Web emerged in the early 1990s." (Discovering Computers 2010, 80) This definitely will change the way I address certain things, for example, when I want to research how to bake a cake, I will say I'm going to search the Web, instead of the Internet. This may not seem important, but really it is when taking into consideration the fact that some things a person doesn't have to use the Web for, but only the internet; things such as e-mail, or instant messaging. 
 I also learned that the Web contains about a trillion web pages, and that those web pages can generally be divided into groups such as educational, online social network, entertainment, and informational, just to name a few. Each web page contains links that take you to either other web pages within that same site, or to web pages that are by another author that may deal with the same issue. But in order to get to a web page in the first place, unless a user already knows the web page, the most helpful tools that the web offers are search engines! Some of the most common search engines available include Google.com, Yahoo.com, Altavista.com and msn.com, just to name few. Web pages contain links, articles, pictures and sometimes interactive activities for its users. For more information on using web pages, I used this site to learn: http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-page.htm.

 

Not only do people use the Web for researching things or for entertainment, but also for buying goods! Sites such as ebay.com or amazon.com offer a variety of goods that people can purchase online and have shipped to them the next day or in a few weeks. In the textbook, the authors discuss three types of commerce that occur electronically, or as it is know, e-commerce. The three kinds of commerce are Business-to-consumer (B2C), where a business is selling to a customer; Consumer-to-consumer (C2C), where a consumer is selling to another consumer; and Business-to-business (B2B), where a business is selling to another business. Online shopping, as e-commerce is otherwise known to many, is becoming more and more popular in today's society because it's more convenient in the way that people don't have to leave their house and go to the store to buy something, but rather it can just be shipped to their house. Another advantage of online shopping is being able to pre-order certain items, as well as being able to buy items that maybe be sold out in stores. An example of online shopping's growing popularity is looking at online sales before the holiday time, especially in the north. In northern states people would rather not drive in the snow, so it's easier to just order something online. But even people who live in southern states will find shopping online easier instead of waiting in long lines around the holiday time. 
Both the Internet and the World Wide Web are important in the business world as well because it allows businesses not only to interact and communicate with other businesses, but with their customers as well. Offering their products online lets business open their client base to a much larger population rather than just having two or three stores scattered throughout the country.