Internet Adresses

The Internet relies on an addressing system much like

the postal service to send data and
information to a computer at a specific destination.
An IP address, short for Internet Protocol
address, is a number that uniquely identifies each
computer or device connected to the Internet. The
IP address usually consists of four groups of numbers,
each separated by a period. In general, the first
portion of each IP address identifies the network and
the last portion identifies the specific computer.

These all-numeric IP addresses are difficult to

remember and use. Thus, the Internet supports
the use of a text name that represents one or more
IP addresses. A domain name is the text
version
of an IP address.
IP address 72.14.207.99
Domain name www.google.com

Every domain name contains a top-level

domain (TLD), which is the last section of
the domain name.
When you specify a domain name, a server
translates the domain name to its associated IP
address so that data and information can be
routed to the correct computer. This server is an
Internet server that usually is associated with an
Internet access provider.

Examples of Generic Top-Level Domains

Types of Web Sites

Thirteen types of Web sites are portal,
news, informational, business/marketing,
blog, wiki, online social network, educational,
entertainment, advocacy, Web application,
content aggregator, and personal.
Many Web sites fall into more than one of
these categories.

Portal
A portal is a Web site that offers
a variety of Internet services from a
single,
convenient location. Most
portals offer these free services: search
engine; news; sports and weather; Web
publishing; reference tools such as
yellow
pages, stock quotes, and maps;
shopping;
and e-mail communications services.
Popular portals include AltaVista, AOL,
Excite, GO.com, iGoogle, Lycos, MSN,
and Yahoo!.

News
A news Web site contains
newsworthy material including
stories
and articles relating to current
events, life,
money, sports, and the weather.
News papers and television
and
radio stations are some of the
media that
maintain news Web sites.

Informational
An informational Web site
contains
factual information. Many United
States government agencies have
informational
Web sites providing information
such as census data,
tax codes, and the congressional
budget. Other organizations
provide information such as
public transportation
schedules and published research
findings.

Business/Marketing
A business/marketing
Web site contains content that
promotes or sells
products or services. Nearly
every
enterprise has a
business/marketing Web site.
Many companies also allow you
to purchase their
products or services online.

Blog
A blog, short for Weblog, is an informal
Web site consisting of time-stamped articles, or
posts, in a diary or journal format, usually listed
in
reverse chronological order (Figure 2-11e). A blog
that contains video clips is called a video blog or
vlog. A microblog allows users to publish short
messages, usually between 100 and 200
characters,
for others to read. Twitter is a popular microblog.
The term blogosphere refers to the worldwide
collection of blogs, and the vlogosphere refers
to all vlogs worldwide. Blogs reflect the interests,
opinions, and personalities of the author and
sometimes site visitors. Blogs have become an
important means of worldwide communications.

Wiki
A wiki is a collaborative Web site that
allows
users to create, add to, modify, or delete
the Web site
content via their Web browser. Most
wikis are open
to modification by the general public.
Wikis usually
collect recent edits on a Web page so that
someone
can review them for accuracy. The
difference
between a wiki and a blog is that users
cannot modify
original posts made by the blogger. A
popular wiki is
Wikipedia, a free Web encyclopedia

Content Aggregator
A content aggregator is
a business that gathers and organizes Web
content
and then distributes, or feeds, the content
to subscribers for free or a fee .
Examples of distributed content include news,
music, video, and pictures. Subscribers select
content in which they are interested.
Whenever
this content changes, it is downloaded
automatically
(pushed) to the subscribers computer or
mobile device. RSS 2.0, which stands for
Really
Simple Syndication, is a specification that
content
aggregators use to distribute content to
subscribers.

Personal
A private individual or family not
usually associated with any
organization may
maintain a personal Web site.
People publish personal Web
pages for a variety
of reasons. Some are job
hunting. Others
simply want to share life
experiences with
the world.

Online Social Networks

An online social
network, also called a social networking Web
site, is a Web site that encourages members in
its online community to share their interests,
ideas, stories, photos, music, and videos with
other registered users. Popular
social networking Web sites include MySpace
and Facebook, with Facebook alone boasting
more than 300 million active users. A media
sharing Web site is a specific type of online
social network that enables members to share
media such as photos, music, and videos.
Flickr,
Fotki, and Webshots are popular photo sharing
communities; PixelFish and YouTube are
popular video sharing communities.

Educational
An educational Web site offers
exciting, challenging avenues for
formal
and informal teaching and learning.
For a more structured learning
experience,
companies provide online training to
employees; and colleges offer online
classes
and degrees. Instructors often use the
Web
to enhance classroom teaching by
publishing
course materials, grades, and other
pertinent
class information.

Entertainment
An entertainment Web site
offers an interactive and
engaging environment.
Popular entertainment
Web sites offer music, videos,
sports, games,
ongoing Web episodes,
sweepstakes, chat
rooms, and more.

Advocacy
An advocacy Web site contains
content that describes a cause,
opinion, or idea. These Web
sites usually present
views of a particular group or
association.

Netiquette
Netiquette, which is short for Internet
etiquette, is the code of acceptable
behaviors users
should follow while on the Internet; that is, it is
the conduct expected of individuals while online.
Netiquette includes rules for all aspects of the
Internet, including the World Wide Web, e-mail,
instant messaging, chat rooms, FTP, and
newsgroups and message boards.