When the Internet first started, it was a great place to publish information

Last week, we started to look at issues of privacy and security on the Internet. This week, we willtake a deeper look at the social Internet and how this new paradigm impacts our digital lives.What is Web 2.0?When the Internet first started, it was a great place to publish information. Because publishing wasso difficult (one had to know HTML and have access to specialized web servers), few individualscreated web pages. Websites were created by organizations or businesses and focused ondelivering “read only” content, where individuals were consumers of the content. Few individualscreated personal webpages.The term Web 2.0 refers to the secondgenerationof the Internet, often referred to as the “socialInternet.” In this new Internet, individual users become both consumers and creators of Internetcontent. Did anything really change or is there really a new Internet? Yes and no. Technologymoved forward enough to provide new tools and services that made it easy for the novice user tocreate Internet content. Best of all, these tools and services are generally available to the averageuser free of charge!What are some of these tools that make up Web 2.0? It’s difficult to tell which came first, so I’llfocus on categories of tools.Social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Yammer have gained popularityamong a wide range of users. Once thought to be the domain of the young, social networkingsites boast a wellroundedpopulation of users. According to a PEW Institute research report(Duggan & Brenner, 2013), a full 33% of all Facebook users are 50 years of age or older. Socialmedia sites provide users with a way to connect with family, friends, and colleagues by postingjust about anything that interests them.Blogging, or creating a web log, is another way users can develop content for the Internet. With awide variety of free sites such as Blogger and WordPress, users can create blogs for almost anypurpose and post content quickly and easily. Content can be simple text or rich media. Blogs cancontain multiple linked pages, similar to websites, making them an excellent alternative totraditional website creation. The popularity of blogging has increased over the years, as publishingtools have become even easier to use.Along the same lines of blogging is microblogging,or Twitter. Here the user can send tweets ofup to 140 characters on just about any topic and follow other Twitter users. These tweets arepushed out to followers, making them available immediately to the entire Twitter community.Because millions of users are connected worldwide, information is available in almost realtime.As a result, many news stories broke first on Twitter before the rest of the traditional news mediawas reporting the story. Indeed, Twitter followers often were the first to learn of major news storiesalmost as they occurred. This is because those who were living the experience were reportingwhat they saw through microtweets.In addition to social networking and blogging sites, users can create content on a number of othertools such as SlideShare (for sharing PowerPoint presentations), YouTube (for sharing videos), aswell as sites such as StumbleUpon, Diigo, and Pinterest for social bookmarking.Living in a Digital WorldIn Chapter 8, Bowles continues his discussion of what it means to live in a digital world. Bowlesprovides excellent warning about privacy, piracy, and pornography. Most importantly, Bowlesdiscusses how to protect yourself and your family from these dangers. Pay special attention to thediscussions on virus and malware attacks. According to Kaspersky (Raiu & Emm, 2013), amanufacturer of Internet security products, the biggest threat of malware is on mobile devices. Inaddition, there appears to be an increasing attack on mobile banking, “the mobile world is one thefastestdevelopingIT security areas” (Raiu & Emm, 2013, para. 1). As a result, security andproper protection is very important.However, viruses and malware are not the only threats to your privacy and safety on the Internet.There are many schemes that prey on human vulnerabilities to take advantage of Internet users.“Get rich quick” schemes are everywhere. While there are many ways in which one canlegitimately make money on the Internet (ecommercebeing one), there are many, many scamsthat seek to separate you from your hardearnedcash. Email and Internet fraud is everywhere andone must be savvy to spot the schemes. Dvorak (2010) wrote a wonderful article for PC Magazinethat describes how one can spot an Internet hoax. The number one way that you can spot a hoax:it’s on the Internet (Dvorak, 2010). I think what Dvorak is saying is that we must be aware,understand our own responsibility in protecting our digital identity, and stay alert to possible fraud.Because of digital connectivity, we have access to individuals from around the world as well asthose individuals right in our own backyards in ways that remove the limitations of time and space.We can carry on conversations through our computers whether they are through chat or throughvideo conferencing. Businesses can save millions of dollars connecting employees and customersthrough web conferencing tools. Employees can enjoy the benefits of telework. However, all ofthis connectivity comes at a price: increasing bandwidth requirements. Bandwidth is used todescribe how much data can be sent or received and how quickly the packets will be transmitted.In the United States, bandwidth can be expensive. In fact, we have some of the most expensiveand slowest Internet connections available (McNicholas, 2011). Not surprisingly, Asian countriessuch as Japan and South Korea have made significant investments in Internet infrastructure. Herein the United States, companies are worried that the costs of making such improvements to ourinfrastructure will be slow to recoup. But as the rest of the world offers faster, cheaper Internetspeeds, the US will need to increase bandwidth in order to compete in a global economy.Finally, with all of this connectivity, we need to be mindful of the legal implications. Our world hasbecome flat (Bowles, 2013), we have great deal of information available at our finger tips.Remember our discussions on intellectual property? The ease of which we can obtain informationcan blur the lines between ownership of intellectual assets once they are made available on theInternet. Be sure to take the time to understand why it is important to honor those who provide uswith intellectual assets and give proper credit through appropriate academic citations.PowerPointPowerPoint is the third and final application in the Microsoft Office suite that we will be exploring inthis class. PowerPoint is used to create presentations of all types, but most often, it is used tocreate business presentations. One of the reasons PowerPoint is such a powerful presentationtool is because of the number of different types of elements that can be embedded in apresentation. A user can include graphic elements including photographs and clip art, animatedcontent, live links to Internet content, embedded videos and sound files, and elements created inother Microsoft applications such as Excel data, charts, or graphs.Because presentations can be, well, boring, users need to learn how to effectively use PowerPointto create professional presentations that get the message across without putting the audience tosleep. Learning how to avoid the “wall of words” is important. According to Garr Reynolds (2013),presentations should follow some basic guidelines to be effective. Consider simple, cleanpresentations that use a minimum of distracting elements. Limit bullet points and transitions, anduse highqualitygraphics that are essential to your presentation. However, the most importantthing to remember about PowerPoint presentations is the message! Be sure that your message isclearly told and not lost in the technology.To help you remember these points, I recommend watching a very funny yet all too importantpresentation by comedian and engineer Don McMillan titled, “ Life After Death by PowerPoint ”:http://youtu.be/KbSPPFYxx3o. Although meant to be a humorous look at PowerPointpresentations, Don provides some very useful information for anyone learning to createpresentations. Enjoy!ReferencesBowles, M. D. (2013). Introduction to computer literacy. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education,Inc.Dvorak, J. C. (2010, December 1). Top 10 ways to spot an Internet hoax . PCMag. Retrieved fromhttp://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373694,00.aspDuggan, M., & Brenner, J. (2013, February 14). The demographics of social media users – 2012[PDF file]. Retrieved from PEW Research Center:http://pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2013/PIP_SocialMediaUsers.pdfMcNicholas, K. (2011, January 24). The fastest Internet speeds in the world . Forbes. Retrievedfromhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/kymmcnicholas/2011/01/24/thefastestinternetspeedsintheworld/Raiu, C., & Emm, D. (2013, December 10). Kaspersky security bulletin 2013. Overall statistics for2013. Retrieved fromhttp://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792318/Kaspersky_Security_Bulletin_2013_Overall_statistics_for_2013Reynolds, G. (2013). Top ten slide tips. Retrieved fromhttp://www.garrreynolds.com/presotips/design/