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Benefits of social networking?

Some of the Benefits of Social Networking Lower Costs

It is significantly cheaper to employ online social networking strategies than to pay for advertising. When you social network, you can prescreen potential customers. You learn what your prospects like and what they don’t. That personal relationship you gain when you connect with your potential customer is more valuable than what you would get had you advertised. Advertising is impersonal: the “one size fits all” concept does not seem to work anymore.

Credibility and Trust

Connecting with prospects on a personal level builds trust and credibility. A general rule of thumb is to offer your services, expertise or help before you ask for it. It is acceptable to promote your services when asked. If you’re not careful, your attempts could be considered spam. Instead, wait for the opportunities to present themselves instead of forcing a situation.

Educational Benefits of Social Networking
Education Week has published an article which indicates that Social Networking can have educational benefits. According to a survey commissioned by the National School Boards Association (NSBA), 50% of teens say they talk to their peers about schoolwork online (IM, blog or social networking sites) or via text message. A larger proportion (60%) indicate that they discuss education-related topics such as college and career planning. According to the survey, 96% of students with access to the Internet build social networks. That more than 50% of these students discuss education is promising for educators. NSBA says that Social Networking technologies should be adapted for use in the classroom.

“When it’s another generation’s technology, it’s easy to be uncomfortable with it and say we don’t need it,” said Ann Flynn, the NSBA’s director of educational technology. “We want to say to people, explore these things. Figure out what kinds of tools they are. By no means are we saying people shouldn’t be safe. But we also don’t want to see policies that are so restrictive that the unintended consequence is to keep the technology out of the hands of educators.”

The NSBA suggests setting up chat rooms or blogs where students can talk about, and collaborate on, schoolwork. They also suggest altering policies that ban or restrict the use of these sites while at school. The survey found that the reports of cyberbullying or online bullying could be out of proportion to the fear induced by it. Their report indicated that 7% of students surveyed said they were victims of cyberbullying – this is much less than the 32% indicated in a survey by PEW conducted earlier this summer. The NSBA survey also included a separate study on how districts use technology. 96% of the district leaders interviewed say that teachers assign homework via the Internet, and nearly half of the schools go online for collaborative projects with other schools. Currently, 80% of schools ban chat software, and more than 50% ban the use of social networking sites. This policy may be too restrictive. Social networking can be embraced for its “social” modes of learning, and with education on Internet safety, can be a valuable educational tool.

“One reason why many educators do not find the technologies ‘useful educational tools’ comes from the fact that the teaching paradigm that most teachers use—kids ‘being taught’ (mostly by lecture)—conflicts with these technologies,” he said in an e-mail. “If you are lecturing, they are mainly an interruption. The technologies become much more useful (and in fact necessary) once the paradigm shifts to ‘students teaching themselves’ (with guidance).”

Many analysts also believe that social networking sites will be key assets in future job interviews. Currently 10% of companies review social networking profiles as a part of the candidate review process – a number which will only increase. Education should stem around embracing social networking sites, and their uses for education, but also on what types of information students should and should not be posting online. Security should also be considered part of the education process – this report by CNET recently exposed the dangers of allowing “friends” access to your personal information. You can read the full NSBA report here [PDF]. Tags: social networking, social networking education, education technology, technology in the classroom, facebook, myspace, social learning

Useful sites

List of useful sites in creating a web page and a web blog:

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Create Free Web Pages with WebSpawner

:Blogger.com: Create Your Free Blog
:Webs.com
:Facebook.com
:Friendster.com
:Thoughts.com
:Myblogsite.com

:Wordpress.com

:Gmail.com

What is internet?

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies. The Internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail. In addition it supports popular services such as online chat, file transfer and file sharing, gaming, commerce, social networking, publishing, video on demand, and teleconferencing and telecommunications. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications allow person-to-person communication via voice and video.

The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s when the United States funded research projects of its military agencies to build robust, fault-tolerant and distributed computer networks. This research and a period of civilian funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation spawned worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and led to the commercialization of an international network in the mid 1990s, and resulted in the following popularization of countless applications in virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth’s population uses the services of the Internet.

Another definition

Common terms used in the internet?

Common Terms Used in Internet:
NET:
The top-level domain originally intended for internet or computer related domains, but any person can register a domain with a .net extension.

ORG:
The top-level domain originally intended for non-profit organizations, but anyone may now register a domain ending in .org.

EDU:
The top-level domain created for four-year, degree-granting colleges and universities. Only colleges and universities can register .edu domains.

GOV:
The top-level domain created for agencies and branches of the United States Federal Government. The General Services Administration (GSA) handles the registration of .gov domain names.

MIL:
The top-level domain created for United States military entities.

Other Top Level Domains:
A top-level domain is the part of the domain name located to the right of the dot (? . ?). The most common TLDs are .com, .net and .org. Several new top-level domains have been added to the menu recently, including, .biz, .info, .name, and .ws. The top-level domains have certain guidelines attached, but are for the most part available to any registrant, anywhere in the world. Exceptions are the restricted TLDs (rTLDs) ? which include .aero, .biz, .edu, .mil, .museum, .name, and .pro ? that require the registrant to represent a certain type of entity, or to belong to a certain community. The .name TLD is available strictly for individuals, while .edu is reserved for educational entities, such as universities or high schools. Where appropriate, a top-level domain name can be of geographic significance and hence only available to registrants in the locale defined by the TLD. These are called country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) and include such top-level domains as .bz (Belize),.ca (Canada), .dk (Denmark), .ec (Ecuador), ie (Republic of Ireland), .uk (United Kingdom), .us (United States), and .zw (Zimbabwe).
Administrative Contact: The administrative contact is an individual authorized to interact with the domain registrar on behalf of the domain name registrant. The administrative contact should be able to answer questions about the domain name?s registration and the domain name registrant.

Alias:
Alternate name.

Applet:
An applet is an embedded program on a web site. Applets are usually written in the coding language called Java. They are mainly used for creating a virtual or 3-dimensional object that may move or interact with the web site. It is a small executable module, that normally doesn?t have the complete features and user interface of a normal application. Java is the language most commonly associated with applets. An applet is like a small piece of executable code that needs a full application to contain it. The applet runs inside of the application in a ?sand box? or ?virtual machine,? which is a set of computer resources and instructions that make up an environment for the applet?s execution.

ASP (Active Server Pages):
Active Server Pages enable web developers to make their sites dynamic with database driven content. The code is mainly written in VB Script, and it is produced on the server of the web site instead of the browser of your web site visitors. The server reads the ASP code and then translates it to raw HTML. This means that the web site owner doesn?t have to worry about the visitor having the right tools to view the web site?s dynamic content. The only downfall to ASP is that since it is run from the server, it takes longer for the pages to load because there are more steps involved in translating the code.

Audio Streaming:
The process of providing audio content on a web site. This takes up a nice amount of bandwidth, especially if you get a lot of visitors at your site. Some hosts do not allow audio or video streaming because of this. If you are going to want audio on your site, you should make sure that your host supports audio streaming first. This is usually stated in their plans.

Auto Responder:
An automated program that acknowledges receipt of an e-mail message, and then sends back a previously prepared email to the sender, letting them know it was received or that certain actions are being taken. Most of you probably already have a basic idea of what this is when you go on vacation and you create an auto response at your work to let everyone that emails you know that you will be away for the next week. Autoresponders are frequently used to handle requests for additional information or to confirm sales or other online transactions. Once you configure your autoresponder, it sends e-mail with no further action required on your part, making your web site interactive around the clock.

What is HTML?

HTML, which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items. It allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of “tags” surrounded by angle brackets within the web page content. It can include or can load scripts in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML processors like Web browsers; and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the appearance and layout of text and other material. The W3C, maintainer of both HTML and CSS standards, encourages the use of CSS over explicit presentational markup.

Hyper Text Markup Language(HTML)is the encoding scheme used to create and format a web document. A user need not be a expert programmer to make use of HTML for creating hypertext documents that can be put on the internet

What is a web blog?

A weblog or blog is a website that maintains frequently updated and ongoing entries or posts. Most blogs feature a community, comments and links to other sites or articles on the web. A blog is usually updated more often than other sites, which encourages readers to visit more often.

Definition:
A blog is a specific type of website. It is typically arranged in order, from the most recent post at the top of the page to older posts and you scroll down the page. Blogs are usually written by a single person (although there are many exceptions to this) and a blog is usually written about a specific topic. You can find blogs on virtually any topic, from science fiction to gardening.
Features
For the most part, blogs have three features that set them apart from other types of websites. A blog’s content is usually updated far more frequently than a regular site. Blogs can also be syndicated. You can read a blog through a web browser or through a feed, This means that people can read the posts on a blog without actually visiting the site. Blogs also offer a community feel and conversation.
Types
A personal blog is a commentary or online diary written by one person. This is the most common type of blog. Many personal blogs are simply intended to be seen by the writer or a small group of the writer’s friends and family.
Corporate blogs can be used for business purposes. These types of blogs are used to facilitate communication in a company or for marketing and building the company’s web presence.
Niche blogs focus on one particular topic. The topics can be virtually anything, from travel to politics.
Posts
To keep a blog interesting, you can use several different types of blog posts. Your posts can be instructional or informational. You can use a post to review a product. A popular type of blog post is a list. You can also interview someone in the field that your blog addresses and make that into a post.
Benefits
There are several benefits of blogging. A blog is a great way to make contact and make new friends who have similar interests. If you have products or services to sell, a blog can help you attract customers. You can also use your blog to build your credibility and establish yourself as an expert in your field.

How web blog works?

Blogs appear on the news pretty often these days. For example, a reporter is tipped to a story by a blog, or a blog reports another angle on a story. Blogs show up in magazines a lot, too.

But there is a good chance you have never seen a blog (also known as a weblog) or experienced the blogosphere. What are blogs? There are now millions of them — where did they all come from?

One of the things that is so amazing about blogs is their simplicity.

Think about a “normal Web site.” It usually has a home page, with links to lots of sub-pages that have more detail. HowStuffWorks is like this, with thousands of information pages all organized under a home page. A small business site follows the same format — it might have a home pag­e and five or 10 sub-pages. Most traditional Web sites follow this format. If the site is small, it is sort of like an online brochure. If it is large, it is like an electronic encyclopedia.

­ A typical Web site has a home page that links to sub-pages within the site. CNN.com is typical of this genre. The CNN site contains thousands of articles all organized into big categories. The categories and all the latest stories are accessed from the home page.

- A blog is much simpler:

-A blog is normally a single page of entries. There may be archives of older entries, but the “main page” of a blog is all anyone really cares about.

-A blog is organized in reverse-chronological order, from most recent entry to least recent.

-A blog is normally public — the whole world can see it.

-The entries in a blog usually come from a single author.

-The entries in a blog are usually stream-of-consciousness. There is no particular order to them. For example, if I see a good link, I can throw it in my blog. The tools that most bloggers use make it incredibly easy to add entries to a blog any time they feel like it.

Want To learn more?
check this site for more info:Howstuffworks.com

What is social networking?

Social networking is the practice of expanding the number of one’s business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals. While social networking has gone on almost as long as societies themselves have existed, the unparalleled potential of the Internet to promote such connections is only now being fully recognized and exploited, through Web-based groups established for that purpose.

Based on the six degrees of separation concept (the idea that any two people on the planet could make contact through a chain of no more than five intermediaries), social networking establishes interconnected Internet communities (sometimes known as personal networks) that help people make contacts that would be good for them to know, but that they would be unlikely to have met otherwise. In general, here’s how it works: you join one of the sites and invite people you know to join as well. Those people invite their contacts to join, who in turn invite their contacts to join, and the process repeats for each person. In theory, any individual can make contact through anyone they have a connection to, to any of the people that person has a connection to, and so on.

Web sites dedicated to social networking include Friendster, Linkedin, Spoke, and Tribe Networks. IBM and Microsoft are among organizations said to be considering entering this market.