by The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.
The origins of the Internet date back to the development of packet switching and research commissioned by the United States Department of Defense in the 1960s to enable time-sharing of computers. The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1970s. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated a sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the network. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, commercialization incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life.
Most traditional communication media, including telephony, radio, television, paper mail and newspapers are reshaped, redefined, or even bypassed by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as email, Internet telephony, Internet television, online music, digital newspapers, and video streaming websites. Newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking services. Online shopping has grown exponentially for major retailers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs, as it enables firms to extend their “brick and mortar” presence to serve a larger market or even sell goods and services entirely online. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries.
The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own policies. The overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address (IP address) space and the Domain Name System (DNS), are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise. In November 2006, the Internet was included on USA Today’s list of New Seven Wonders.
Objectives of the Internet:
Web Chat: Web chat is an application that allows you to send and receive messages in real-time with others. By using Internet chat software, the user can log on to specific websites and talk with a variety of other users online. Chat software is interactive software that allows users to enter comments in one window and receive responses from others who are using the same software in another window.
E-mail: E-mail is an electronic message sent across a network from one computer user to one or more recipients. It refers to the internet services in which messages are sent from and received by servers.
World Wide Web: The World Wide Web is the Internet’s most popular information exchange service. It provides users with access to a large number of documents that are linked together using hypertext or hyperlinks.
E-commerce: E-commerce refers to electronic business transactions made over the Internet. It encompasses a wide range of product and service-related online business activities.
Internet telephony: The technique that converts analog speech impulses into digital signals and routes them through packet-switched networks of the internet is known as internet telephony.
Video conferencing: The term “video conferencing” refers to the use of voice and images to communicate amongst users.
Application:
Social networking
Social networking is the use of internet-based social media programs to make connections with friends, family, classmates, customers and clients. Social networking can be done for social purposes, business purposes or both. The programs show the associations between individuals and facilitate the acquisition of new contacts.
E-Commerce
E–commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the Internet. These business transactions occur either business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-business. Largest e-commerce companies in India are Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon India, Paytm.
Research
Research papers are present online which helps in the researcher doing a literature review.
Stock market updates
You can sell or buy shares while sitting on computer through internet. Several websites like moneycontrol.com, groww.com provide information regarding investment.
Job search
Nowadays, many people search for their jobs online as it is quicker and there is a larger variety of job vacancies present. People can publish resume online for prospective job. Some of the web sites providing this service are naukri.com, monster.com, summerjob.com.
Communication
Computer users around the world extensively use the email service on internet to communicate with each other. Pictures, documents and other files are sent as email attachments. Emails can be cc-ed to multiple email addresses.
Online Shopping
The internet has also facilitated the introduction of a new market concept consisting of virtual shops. They provide information about products or services for sale through www servers. Using the internet services customers can submit specific product queries and request specific sales quotes.
