From travels to books or services – everything can be purchased online. Some have expressed their fear of disappearance of the small-scale retailers but people still tend to buy in smaller shops when they are looking for special present or vintage objects.

The e-commerce sector also offers a wide range of new job opportunities. Everyone can start their own shop online or sell self-made goods on third-party e-commerce platforms. Nothing more than a good idea and a computer with a working internet connection is needed to become successful and to make a name for oneself, therefore not much starting capital is necessary to become your own boss.

Starting an Online Business

Some research might come in handy for people who want to start their own e-commerce business. The <a href=”http://www.statista.com“>website Statista</a> offers useful statistics on important aspects such as consumer behaviour. Beginners can check if the good they are planning on selling has had satisfying sales figures and if the demand is high enough to start an own business.

The internet offers the great possibility of comparing prices from different sellers. People who want to sell their products via internet shopping should always keep their concurrence in sight since costumers will look for the cheapest price but also for the best costumer rating. Starting an own e-commerce business can be a great success if aspects such as the latter are taken account of. One must always pay attention to the details in order to create an extensive whole. The statistics show that e-commerce really is the business of the future.

Research Process

The process of research usually consists of several separated steps: the discovery and interpretation of data which is to result in the development of new applicable methods to extend the general human knowledge. The term ‘research’ generally is subdivided into three different areas which each use their own researching methods: the scientific research which tries to apply scientific methods with the aim to satisfy the basic human curiosity for exploring its natural surroundings, the artistic research which is also known as the ‘practice based research’ and is applied only through mind work and therefore often used when creative results are wanted instead of strictly scientific or statistic findings and the historical research which is used whenever the collection of historic data is needed, but it can also be part of a scientific research by being embodied in a scientific method.

Evaluating Research

Whenever a research has successfully been conducted and its outcome evaluated, the usual subsequent step is the publishing. In context to the topic ‘research’, ‘publishing’ usually refers to ‘academic publishing’ which means that in a public paper, usually academic journals or specialist magazines, the elaborated data is summed up and a conclusion is drawn. This way the results are made accessible for a wider audience can be discussed by the entire academic and, if interested, the non-academic world.

Usefull Results

To guarantee a successful and therefore useful outcome of a research, it is essential to provide sufficient funding. Usually the necessary money is brought up by the government or private corporations that do researches in order to improve their chances on the economic market. Also quite often, universities conduct their own researches to sell the results to corporations on the private sector, but nevertheless the original funding was done by the government.

In recent times, there has been more and more public criticism about the growing influence of the private sector on the conduction and evaluation of researches. But in times of decreasing government funds for academic research, it seems to be the only way to be able to do research at all.

Traffic Monitoring

The term traffic monitoring describes the analysis of the behavior of website visitors, which often is essential for optimizing and improving a website. Data provided by monitoring systems can include referring URLs, most-viewed pages, browser versions, operating systems, screen resolutions, and much more. By monitoring website traffic, it is made possible to evaluate the usage of the website and locate strong and weak aspects. A concrete example: A website has been designed for a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and does not look too good with larger resolutions. However, most of the visitors indeed use larger resolutions, and due to the apparently unoptimized design, some of them relocate to a competitor’s site. Without monitoring traffic, the website owner might not be aware of this problem. With a tracking tool including screen resolutions, however, he is able to find out about it and consequently adapts his website, preventing the loss of visitors due to a bad-looking design.

Website Reports

Technically, there are several ways to prepare reports, with tools based on log file analysis or small scripts being the most popular solutions.
Most web servers automatically generate web logs, which among other details usually include the exact time, date, requested file, IP address, user agent (pointing to a browser), and referring site of the request. These logs, however, are often very long and not suited for getting an overview of the past traffic. To prepare well arranged reports, a variety of free and commercial software for log file analysis is available, these applications can generate reports ranging from simple piecharts to sophisticated overviews.

Monitoring Analysis

Alternatively, a popular solution for tracking visitors employs JavaScript. A small script is added to each page of the website. Whenever the page is accessed, the script is loaded, gathering details about the visitor’s behavior and computer specifications. In comparison to the analysis of log files, a disadvantage is that the loading time of tracked pages is slightly increased. An advantage, however, is that more data can be gathered. Even details not included in log files, such as the screen resolution or system language, can be recorded using script-based traffic monitoring software.

Regardless of the method, traffic monitoring provides helpful data for improving a website. As such, it is no surprise that the majority of all websites includes visitor tracking systems.

Facebook Network

Surely one of the names that first come to mind by asking that question is “Facebook”. But with meanwhile more than half a billion users it still does not make it into the top three. Neither do other worldwide known websites like “eBay”, “amazon” or the “Wikimedia Foundation” which all are in the top ten, but still not good enough for place one, two or three. Even though all these websites are visited by hundreds of millions every day, there are still pages which attract even more visitors: advanced search engines. The former number one website “yahoo” only makes it to the third place with 580 million clicks per day.

Online Community – growinger fater every day

After the big concern missed the chance to adapt to the faster and faster growing online community, it was gradually superseded by the number two on the clicks-ranking list: Microsoft. The largest software company in the world also hosts the second most clicked websites. With 691 million people visit Microsoft-sites worldwide, every day. Although the sales numbers of Microsoft’s hardcopy products seem to have decreased through recent years, the success of their online business remains unchanged. The number one and therefore the largest website in the world also is the number two’s strongest competition in the online business world: Google.

Google is largest website in the world

The shooting star among all advanced search engines is the fastest growing webpage of the last ten years. Last year alone it grew by 157 per cent and reached the incredible mark of 844 million clicks – every day! The search engine’s success soon spread out to affect other branches of the company. With additional software like “Google Maps”, “Google Earth” or “Google Street View” the concern increased its online offer and thus the number of visitors to their sites. With no end in sight, the online market seems to keep growing exponentially. Besides the criticism Google recently has had to take all over the world, the company is the one that is to be tipped as the next year’s winner.

Modern TV User

The modern and future user of TV and radio services demands to have content available when he has the time to spare. A service, traditional broadcasting with its fixed schedules cannot provide. Flexibility to meet user demands is limited in analogue media that at maximum can broadcast repeats at different times. The very idea of broadcasting is to be broad, that is, to be delivered to as many people as possible at the same time. This has been a problem in regions spanning more than one time zone before, individualisation of private time makes it even more of a problem.

Interactive Media

Interactive media have introduced the viewers to a new concept of non-bound programming, available to the viewer (or listener) when he chooses to watch (or listen). This is a challenge traditional broadcasting cannot take. Content is no longer sent to a broad audience at once, making this part of the word somewhat obsolete.
However, constant availability of content does result in a more widespread receivership, broadening the recipients’ numbers despite, or because of, not all recipients having to use the offer at once. So, instead of casting abroad at once, the broadness becomes a conglomerate of several specific castings to singular users.

Broadcasting – Importance for the future

This also increases the importance of casting.
Casting has for a long time meant little more than to send content out. But in its literal meaning it means shaping. Interactive media with their increase in the user’s ability to shape their own content preferences independent of preset options force networks to produce a new way of delivery. Individual casts of programming, consisting of pre-produced bits of content provided by the networks become available.

Content Providers

All is not lost for traditional broadcasting, though. Even on the internet, different content providers manage to reach a differently broad audience. Few pages become leaders in news, entertainment and opinion, able to still cast to a broad audience. They have to take the challenge of smaller providers that cater to a smaller audience, but few of these rise to fame.
Thus, the casting will still be broad despite individualisation. Just a little less broad and more individually casted.

The internet is all about instant access and wide reaching access and there are various manifestations which are good examples of this, however none more than media on demand. Sites like Youtube, and I-Tunes have opened up the internet and stretched its ability as a spreader of information and data for all. They are distinctly different sites but nonetheless both are quintessential examples of what media on demand can achieve.

To pay or not to pay

A large attraction to the internet as a resource is the free access it gives to so much, equally it allows anyone to share what they want. Youtube adheres to both of these ideas, firstly in that none of its content requires paid subscription or one off payments, and secondly with the user friendly functions which allow people to upload anything at any time.

This can cause some security, copyright and censorship issues however the site works hard to prevent this firstly by classifying some content as for over 18s only which can only be accessed by users who have registered and stated their age to be over 18. They also have employees trawling their archives for certain types of content and offending material will be censored or removed.

At the other end of the spectrum are sites like I-Tunes which offer as much easy access, this time to music, but requires users to pay for content. It should be noted though that some free content is available. The power of such sites as these are still strong though, with almost as many people accessing paid-for media on demand as much as free media on demand.

These sites come close to the functions of internet shopping sites but they stand apart in the unique way in which they spread content as far and wide as there are interested parties who are willing to part with their cash for the privilege of downloading this media on demand content.

Internet shopping has grown exponentially since its inception shortly after the introduction of the internet. The concept of being able to make purchases at the click of a button is appealing to all. Most people are familiar with sites which offer all kinds of wares for consumers. Now other retail sectors are smartening up their online functionality and a big growth area for internet shopping is that off grocery shopping.

Online Shopping With Secure Information

Supermarkets offer online shopping services which will often include free delivery to a designated address. In addition to this they will store a consumer´s “favorites” so each time the user returns to purchase, the task is made much easier. Many now will also have the capability to securely store payment information (if a user wishes) so that there is no need to re-enter card details on each purchase. This takes big steps to growing the convenience of such a service with people being able to log on anywhere and make purchases even if they don’t have their wallets with them.

There are also online-marketplaces for luxury goods which sell their rare products online to the whole world. On chrono24.com for example, watch enthusiasts can buy luxury timepieces of the worthiest watch brands. One special treat are Vintage Gold Watches which you can shop via the secure online payment mechanism there.

The older players in this market like Ebay and Amazon have had such functions for a while and whilst Ebay has also offered the ability for individuals to sell online as well as buy, Amazon and many other mainstream sites have now introduced this capability. This offers added benefits twofold for users.

Firstly they are at liberty to make money as well as spend it on the site which warms people to a site. Secondly, when purchasing, they have the choice to select brand new products or second hand (naturally this doesn’t apply for the grocery stores!). This grows product availability almost to a limitless level which is going to continue to build a strong future for internet shopping.

The need to have easy and quick access to a bank account and its content has become increasingly important and the majority of international banks and large national ones have responded accordingly with homebanking. It is not only important to be able to perform transactions with an account but the need to do this anywhere in the world has become of tantamount importance.

With the internet providing worldwide communication at the click of a button, homebanking now makes personal accounting as quick and easy as sending an email or downloading a pdf.

What is on offer with homebanking?

Various banks will have different functionality levels with the most savvy ones allowing a virtual account management service where users and account holders may as well be sitting face to face with their bank managers. There are some banks which are fairly new to the concept of onlinebanking for normal account holders but as a standard people will be able to view their accounts online and manage payments like direct debits. Generally they will also offer free transfers to other accounts held by the same bank and often even in sending BACS transfers to other banks.

Increasingly, features like managing an overdraft, applying for a credit card and applying for personal loans are appearing on homebanking sites. The mass of credit scoring information available to banks online allows decisions for such applications to be made instantly.

This new digital age of homebanking is making the way people manage their money more and more instant which does allow for the potential of increased fraud however banks are responding very well to this challenge and security features on homebanking sites are at a level now where the banks are justified in claiming that homebanking is as safe as managing money at a branch.

Internet communication has always been fast and easy with chat rooms such as ICQ and instant messenger tools like MSN, Yahoo and google. They have taken big steps to making the world a smaller place with people being able to connect with the other side of the world as easily as their next door neighbor. The upside with internet communication is that ending a conversation is as easy as closing a window, perhaps much quicker than getting away from the chatty old lady across the street!

Different Ways of Communication

An often unseen improvement that it has brought also is the improvement of social interaction for many. People who may be shyer in face to face situations can open up and feel more relaxed when typing on a computer so early communication is more effective which then makes later face to face communication more comfortable.

The numerous other avenues which are opened with modern internet communication include the ability to find and reconnect with old friends through search functions and group memberships. There are still controls in place though which, if used properly, will prevent these functions becoming too invasive.

The integration of the webcam into online communication has opened the door for programs such as Skype and now many other standard communication tools have also integrated video functionality to their services. This improvement has ensured that those who have different communication preferences are not alienated as the current offerings will cater to all tastes of verbal and visual contact.

Interestingly, the industry standard of offering all these services for free has had effects on conventional telecommunication industries and costs in these sectors have become increasingly competitive as more online communication tools have been introduced.

There are so many files and programs that people store on personal computers these days that it is a challenge to keep enough storage space on a hard drive. Portable hard drives are very useful but they are not cheap. Web storage through sites such as Rapidshare and Megaupload offer an alternative which doesn’t limit access to documents whilst at the same time keeping computer storage space free for other things.

What are you getting by web storage?

As with many other internet based services, the basic offerings are free to use and sites will offer between 100 and 200GB of storage with no cost for various periods. Megaupload will give this space to users for 2 years where as Rapidshare offers limitless use as long as the files are being regularly accessed. Unused files stay available for free storage for 90 days.

Free accounts will also have a cap on the amount of files which can be uploaded per day, between 500MB and 2GB. Download limits tend to be much higher with the likes of Megaupload allowing up to 20GB a day. The download speed limits for each site will vary between 10 and 20MB per second.

All these web storage sites will allow much freer use of storage space for those who sign up for a paid membership. This tends to be particularly popular as there are no limits on total storage space, daily uploads, daily downloads and even download speed.

Web storage security is often very strong however there are not currently industry standards for the levels of security which websites need to implement. This should not dissuade the use of web storage sites though as they is no evidence to suggest that they are targets for internet crime and fraud.