Exam 6: Discovering Computers: the Internet and World Wide Web

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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 in 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 the following 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. Newspapers 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 business 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. 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 communication. 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 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. 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, chats, 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. WEB APPLICATION A Web application, or Web app, is a Web site that allows users to access and interact with software through a Web browser on any computer or device that is connected to the Internet. Some Web applications provide free access to their software. Others offer part of their software free and charge for access to more comprehensive features or when a particular action is requested. Examples of Web applications include Google Docs, TurboTax Online, and Windows Live Hotmail. 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 subscriber's 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.