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<title>The importance of e-commerce for businesses</title>
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<pubDate>Fri, 14 Apr 2023 07:16:08 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[e-commerce]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[E-commerce – a very long but extremely fast step of modern business processes. In this article, readers will learn about the importance that e-commerce brings. E-commerce is growing strongly,Guest Posting which is an indispensable part of business activities worldwide. With … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/the-importance-of-e-commerce-for-businesses/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[E-commerce – a very long but extremely fast step of modern business processes. In this article, readers will learn about the importance that e-commerce brings.
E-commerce is growing strongly,Guest Posting which is an indispensable part of business activities worldwide. With such a fast and stable growth, combined with the trend of shifting consumer shopping habits, it can be affirmed. E-commerce will increasingly dominate the more important position for businesses. The article outlines the benefits of businesses when participating in the e-commerce market and the outstanding trends of businesses when developing the current e-commerce model.
Set the problem 
Since the advent of the internet, the world has been undeniably important in all areas of social life. It can be said that today the world of e-commerce is growing strongly, it is an integral part of the operation of the business.
With such a fast and stable growth, combined with the trend of shifting consumer shopping habits, it can be confirmed that e-commerce will increasingly occupy more important positions for businesses.
Benefits for businesses when participating in e-commerce market 
Facing the great benefits and popularity of e-commerce, e-commerce has now become an important tool for every business in its business. Benefits that e-commerce brings to businesses include:
- Promote and market information to the global market at a low cost: with today’s internet connectivity, you can easily deliver advertising information to millions of people from all over the world. Depending on the needs and financial ability to pay for the promotion, businesses need to have an appropriate advertising plan.
- Better service for customers: With e-commerce, you can provide catalogs, information, detailed price lists to customers quickly and conveniently, and online shopping has become easily disseminate so much … In this day and age, digital life has pushed the pace of life up, customers increasingly require everything to be faster from product information, purchases, payments and the main. After-sales books, …
- Increase sales: With e-commerce, your customers now no longer limited by geographical distance or working time. Therefore, each business reaches a large number of customers, increasing its revenue and profit.
- Reduce costs: With e-commerce, it will not cost too much for renting stores, premises, waiters, … Especially for export businesses, the costs incurred due to the distance may significantly reduced.
- Competitive advantage: In the context that most businesses are now involved in e-commerce, businesses with innovative ideas, good marketing strategies will be advantageous to compete. Because e-commerce is a playground for creativity and innovation for all businesses.
In short, e-commerce market is really an opportunity for Vietnamese businesses. Businesses don’t think it’s too early to talk about e-commerce. The winners are often the pioneers, moreover, businesses have started to pay much attention to e-commerce, so to take advantage, your business cannot afford to take a walk and observe other people taking action, but your business must act quickly.
E-commerce – Things to keep in mind with your business 
- No template for e-commerce model: There is no best way to apply e-commerce for all businesses. You must rely on the characteristics of your business, products and services to create an e-commerce model that’s right for you. And it is important to remember: the key to your e-commerce success lies in the phrase “creating your own identity”.
- Fierce competition: The cost to implement e-commerce is very low so almost anyone can apply e-commerce, leading to fierce competition in this field. Therefore, to succeed, you must know how to invest: pay attention to network marketing, utilities and quality of customer service, creating your own unique features. Do these 3 factors well, you will succeed.
- Rapid innovation speed: IT is an area where technological backwardness takes place very fast. e-commerce is a type of business based on the development of IT, so the pace of innovation also takes place very quickly, requiring businesses to participate in e-commerce to be always innovating: technological innovation. , innovate business methods, innovate thinking, innovate management … If you are slow in this innovation, you must review your ability to succeed when applying e-commerce.
The development of electronic commerce 
The survey data of more than 4,300 enterprises of the Vietnam E-Commerce Association in 2018 showed that 44% of businesses surveyed said that they built a website, this rate is only 1% compared to the year. 2017 and hasn’t changed much in the last few years.
However, most businesses pay more attention to the care of their website: 47% of businesses said that they update their information daily and 23% said that they update their information weekly.
Social networks and search engines are still the two platforms rated by businesses as highly effective in online advertising activities, with 52% and 40% respectively, the other two tools are 22% of businesses surveyed rated the effectiveness as high, e-newspaper and mobile messaging / mobile applications.
Of the total businesses participating in the survey, 45% of businesses rated the effectiveness of sales through social networks (up from 39% in 2017), followed by 32% of businesses. Appreciate the sales channel through the business website (down slightly from 35% in 2017), the two mobile application channels and e-commerce trading floor hardly changed much compared to the year before.
Many businesses are racing to create the highest competitive advantage, while others simply try to catch up with their competitors with new e-commerce strategies. So where does e-commerce go? How will e-commerce grow? What is the future of e-commerce?
Can point out 5 main trends of e-commerce in the future:
Multi – channel Selling 
The multi-channel sales trend allows businesses to reach their customers on different platforms and environments, from online to offline. As users increasingly demand higher experience and convenience of services, Multi – channel Selling will certainly be a prominent trend in the coming period.
The increasing trend of online shopping through social networking sites is unquestionable, because we spend a lot of time on social networks and are influenced by product information, advertising such as Facebook or Instagram. This trend has led to a sharp increase in transactions and online purchases via social networks.
2.Accelerate delivery and improve customer experience (Customer Experience) 
It can be seen that consumers have never played a central role and have an important voice in the digital economy today. Every user experience, rating, positive or negative feedback has a strong influence on the business performance of e-commerce businesses, especially when the Vietnamese market is witnessing fierce competition. from many big brands.
Except for digitized products, items still have to be shipped directly. Clearly, as e-commerce thrives, delivery needs to be improved even faster.
With the eagerness to receive a new purchase, everyone wants to receive the goods soon. This is also a very important factor that helps e-commerce compete with traditional commerce: Improve delivery speed or lose sales. In the coming years, intraday delivery is probably the most awaited trend.
3.Virtual assistants (Chatbot, AI) 
The technology market changes so quickly, Chatbot or AI has really penetrated and is used effectively by businesses. According to Chatbot Magazine, 25% of customer care services will be integrated with AI virtual assistant in 2020. While research conducted in 2018, 34% of customers feel comfortable communicating with Chatbot when buying.
Although still quite awkward, chatbots are continuously being improved and are expected to become a marketing trend in business and e-commerce websites next year. In fact, chatbots will be the first point of contact between customers and an automated system built with AI.
Customer care chatbots will become more and more “human”, leading customers through a smoother buying journey. However, if done not carefully, chatbots will harm the business.
4.Smartphone application software (Mobile Apps) 
With the development of the Internet, 4G-5G and mobile devices, especially smartphones and electronic payment methods are widely used. Therefore, the trend of e-commerce on mobile platforms via application software is indispensable. This is also what happened in developed countries that came before.
Mobile Apps is a trend used to buy online from users. However, businesses are still confused and do not properly understand and make standards on mobile to meet customers, increase conversion rates of purchases.
The penetration of smartphones and the internet is gradually increasing. According to the “Future Consumer” Report of Thought Leadership, when asked what you cannot live without, up to 45% think that phones are secondary.
Reasons why e-commerce businesses need to consider Mobile Apps as an inevitable trend:
- 82% of users use a phone before buying something.
- 90% of mobile time spent on Apps.
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<title>The Metaphors of the Net</title>
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<pubDate>Tue, 14 Mar 2023 06:53:47 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Metaphors of the Net]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Semantic]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[A decade after the invention of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee is promoting the “Semantic Web”. The Internet hitherto is a repository of digital content. It has a rudimentary inventory system and very crude data location services. I. The … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/the-metaphors-of-the-net/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[A decade after the invention of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee is promoting the “Semantic Web”. The Internet hitherto is a repository of digital content. It has a rudimentary inventory system and very crude data location services.
I. The Genetic Blueprint
A decade after the invention of the World Wide Web,Guest Posting Tim Berners-Lee is promoting the “Semantic Web”. The Internet hitherto is a repository of digital content. It has a rudimentary inventory system and very crude data location services. As a sad result, most of the content is invisible and inaccessible. Moreover, the Internet manipulates strings of symbols, not logical or semantic propositions. In other words, the Net compares values but does not know the meaning of the values it thus manipulates. It is unable to interpret strings, to infer new facts, to deduce, induce, derive, or otherwise comprehend what it is doing. In short, it does not understand language. Run an ambiguous term by any search engine and these shortcomings become painfully evident. This lack of understanding of the semantic foundations of its raw material (data, information) prevent applications and databases from sharing resources and feeding each other. The Internet is discrete, not continuous. It resembles an archipelago, with users hopping from island to island in a frantic search for relevancy.
Even visionaries like Berners-Lee do not contemplate an “intelligent Web”. They are simply proposing to let users, content creators, and web developers assign descriptive meta-tags (“name of hotel”) to fields, or to strings of symbols (“Hilton”). These meta-tags (arranged in semantic and relational “ontologies” – lists of metatags, their meanings and how they relate to each other) will be read by various applications and allow them to process the associated strings of symbols correctly (place the word “Hilton” in your address book under “hotels”). This will make information retrieval more efficient and reliable and the information retrieved is bound to be more relevant and amenable to higher level processing (statistics, the development of heuristic rules, etc.). The shift is from HTML (whose tags are concerned with visual appearances and content indexing) to languages such as the DARPA Agent Markup Language, OIL (Ontology Inference Layer or Ontology Interchange Language), or even XML (whose tags are concerned with content taxonomy, document structure, and semantics). This would bring the Internet closer to the classic library card catalogue.
Even in its current, pre-semantic, hyperlink-dependent, phase, the Internet brings to mind Richard Dawkins’ seminal work “The Selfish Gene” (OUP, 1976). This would be doubly true for the Semantic Web.
Dawkins suggested to generalize the principle of natural selection to a law of the survival of the stable. “A stable thing is a collection of atoms which is permanent enough or common enough to deserve a name”. He then proceeded to describe the emergence of “Replicators” – molecules which created copies of themselves. The Replicators that survived in the competition for scarce raw materials were characterized by high longevity, fecundity, and copying-fidelity. Replicators (now known as “genes”) constructed “survival machines” (organisms) to shield them from the vagaries of an ever-harsher environment.
This is very reminiscent of the Internet. The “stable things” are HTML coded web pages. They are replicators – they create copies of themselves every time their “web address” (URL) is clicked. The HTML coding of a web page can be thought of as “genetic material”. It contains all the information needed to reproduce the page. And, exactly as in nature, the higher the longevity, fecundity (measured in links to the web page from other web sites), and copying-fidelity of the HTML code – the higher its chances to survive (as a web page).
Replicator molecules (DNA) and replicator HTML have one thing in common – they are both packaged information. In the appropriate context (the right biochemical “soup” in the case of DNA, the right software application in the case of HTML code) – this information generates a “survival machine” (organism, or a web page).
The Semantic Web will only increase the longevity, fecundity, and copying-fidelity or the underlying code (in this case, OIL or XML instead of HTML). By facilitating many more interactions with many other web pages and databases – the underlying “replicator” code will ensure the “survival” of “its” web page (=its survival machine). In this analogy, the web page’s “DNA” (its OIL or XML code) contains “single genes” (semantic meta-tags). The whole process of life is the unfolding of a kind of Semantic Web.
In a prophetic paragraph, Dawkins described the Internet:
“The first thing to grasp about a modern replicator is that it is highly gregarious. A survival machine is a vehicle containing not just one gene but many thousands. The manufacture of a body is a cooperative venture of such intricacy that it is almost impossible to disentangle the contribution of one gene from that of another. A given gene will have many different effects on quite different parts of the body. A given part of the body will be influenced by many genes and the effect of any one gene depends on interaction with many others…In terms of the analogy, any given page of the plans makes reference to many different parts of the building; and each page makes sense only in terms of cross-reference to numerous other pages.”
What Dawkins neglected in his important work is the concept of the Network. People congregate in cities, mate, and reproduce, thus providing genes with new “survival machines”. But Dawkins himself suggested that the new Replicator is the “meme” – an idea, belief, technique, technology, work of art, or bit of information. Memes use human brains as “survival machines” and they hop from brain to brain and across time and space (“communications”) in the process of cultural (as distinct from biological) evolution. The Internet is a latter day meme-hopping playground. But, more importantly, it is a Network. Genes move from one container to another through a linear, serial, tedious process which involves prolonged periods of one on one gene shuffling (“sex”) and gestation. Memes use networks. Their propagation is, therefore, parallel, fast, and all-pervasive. The Internet is a manifestation of the growing predominance of memes over genes. And the Semantic Web may be to the Internet what Artificial Intelligence is to classic computing. We may be on the threshold of a self-aware Web.
2. The Internet as a Chaotic Library
A. The Problem of Cataloguing
The Internet is an assortment of billions of pages which contain information. Some of them are visible and others are generated from hidden databases by users’ requests (“Invisible Internet”).
The Internet exhibits no discernible order, classification, or categorization. Amazingly, as opposed to “classical” libraries, no one has yet invented a (sorely needed) Internet cataloguing standard (remember Dewey?). Some sites indeed apply the Dewey Decimal System to their contents (Suite101). Others default to a directory structure (Open Directory, Yahoo!, Look Smart and others).
Had such a standard existed (an agreed upon numerical cataloguing method) – each site could have self-classified. Sites would have an interest to do so to increase their visibility. This, naturally, would have eliminated the need for today’s clunky, incomplete and (highly) inefficient search engines.
Thus, a site whose number starts with 900 will be immediately identified as dealing with history and multiple classification will be encouraged to allow finer cross-sections to emerge. An example of such an emerging technology of “self classification” and “self-publication” (though limited to scholarly resources) is the “Academic Resource Channel” by Scindex.
Moreover, users will not be required to remember reams of numbers. Future browsers will be akin to catalogues, very much like the applications used in modern day libraries. Compare this utopia to the current dystopy. Users struggle with mounds of irrelevant material to finally reach a partial and disappointing destination. At the same time, there likely are web sites which exactly match the poor user’s needs. Yet, what currently determines the chances of a happy encounter between user and content – are the whims of the specific search engine used and things like meta-tags, headlines, a fee paid, or the right opening sentences.
B. Screen vs. Page
The computer screen, because of physical limitations (size, the fact that it has to be scrolled) fails to effectively compete with the printed page. The latter is still the most ingenious medium yet invented for the storage and release of textual information. Granted: a computer screen is better at highlighting discrete units of information. So, these differing capacities draw the battle lines: structures (printed pages) versus units (screen), the continuous and easily reversible (print) versus the discrete (screen).
The solution lies in finding an efficient way to translate computer screens to printed matter. It is hard to believe, but no such thing exists. Computer screens are still hostile to off-line printing. In other words: if a user copies information from the Internet to his word processor (or vice versa, for that matter) – he ends up with a fragmented, garbage-filled and non-aesthetic document.
Very few site developers try to do something about it – even fewer succeed.
C. Dynamic vs. Static Interactions
One of the biggest mistakes of content suppliers is that they do not provide a “static-dynamic interaction”.
Internet-based content can now easily interact with other media (e.g., CD-ROMs) and with non-PC platforms (PDA’s, mobile phones).
Examples abound:
A CD-ROM shopping catalogue interacts with a Web site to allow the user to order a product. The catalogue could also be updated through the site (as is the practice with CD-ROM encyclopedias). The advantages of the CD-ROM are clear: very fast access time (dozens of times faster than the access to a Web site using a dial up connection) and a data storage capacity hundreds of times bigger than the average Web page.
Another example:
A PDA plug-in disposable chip containing hundreds of advertisements or a “yellow pages”. The consumer selects the ad or entry that she wants to see and connects to the Internet to view a relevant video. She could then also have an interactive chat (or a conference) with a salesperson, receive information about the company, about the ad, about the advertising agency which created the ad – and so on.
CD-ROM based encyclopedias (such as the Britannica, or the Encarta) already contain hyperlinks which carry the user to sites selected by an Editorial Board.
Note
CD-ROMs are probably a doomed medium. Storage capacity continually increases exponentially and, within a year, desktops with 80 Gb hard disks will be a common sight. Moreover, the much heralded Network Computer – the stripped down version of the personal computer – will put at the disposal of the average user terabytes in storage capacity and the processing power of a supercomputer. What separates computer users from this utopia is the communication bandwidth. With the introduction of radio and satellite broadband services, DSL and ADSL, cable modems coupled with advanced compression standards – video (on demand), audio and data will be available speedily and plentifully.
The CD-ROM, on the other hand, is not mobile. It requires installation and the utilization of sophisticated hardware and software. This is no user friendly push technology. It is nerd-oriented. As a result, CD-ROMs are not an immediate medium. There is a long time lapse between the moment of purchase and the moment the user accesses the data. Compare this to a book or a magazine. Data in these oldest of media is instantly available to the user and they allow for easy and accurate “back” and “forward” functions.
Perhaps the biggest mistake of CD-ROM manufacturers has been their inability to offer an integrated hardware and software package. CD-ROMs are not compact. A Walkman is a compact hardware-cum-software package. It is easily transportable, it is thin, it contains numerous, user-friendly, sophisticated functions, it provides immediate access to data. So does the discman, or the MP3-man, or the new generation of e-books (e.g., E-Ink’s). This cannot be said about the CD-ROM. By tying its future to the obsolete concept of stand-alone, expensive, inefficient and technologically unreliable personal computers – CD-ROMs have sentenced themselves to oblivion (with the possible exception of reference material).
D. Online Reference
A visit to the on-line Encyclopaedia Britannica demonstrates some of the tremendous, mind boggling possibilities of online reference – as well as some of the obstacles.
Each entry in this mammoth work of reference is hyperlinked to relevant Web sites. The sites are carefully screened. Links are available to data in various forms, including audio and video. Everything can be copied to the hard disk or to a R/W CD.
This is a new conception of a knowledge centre – not just a heap of material. The content is modular and continuously enriched. It can be linked to a voice Q&A centre. Queries by subscribers can be answered by e-mail, by fax, posted on the site, hard copies can be sent by post. This “Trivial Pursuit” or “homework” service could be very popular – there is considerable appetite for “Just in Time Information”. The Library of Congress – together with a few other libraries – is in the process of making just such a service available to the public (CDRS – Collaborative Digital Reference Service).
E. Derivative Content
The Internet is an enormous reservoir of archives of freely accessible, or even public domain, information.
With a minimal investment, this information can be gathered into coherent, theme oriented, cheap compilations (on CD-ROMs, print, e-books or other media).
F. E-Publishing
The Internet is by far the world’s largest publishing platform. It incorporates FAQs (Q&A’s regarding almost every technical matter in the world), e-zines (electronic magazines), the electronic versions of print dailies and periodicals (in conjunction with on-line news and information services), reference material, e-books, monographs, articles, minutes of discussions (“threads”), conference proceedings, and much more besides.
The Internet represents major advantages to publishers. Consider the electronic version of a p-zine.
Publishing an e-zine promotes the sales of the printed edition, it helps sign on subscribers and it leads to the sale of advertising space. The electronic archive function (see next section) saves the need to file back issues, the physical space required to do so and the irritating search for data items.
The future trend is a combined subscription to both the electronic edition (mainly for the archival value and the ability to hyperlink to additional information) and to the print one (easier to browse the current issue). The Economist is already offering free access to its electronic archives as an inducement to its print subscribers.
The electronic daily presents other advantages:
It allows for immediate feedback and for flowing, almost real-time, communication between writers and readers. The electronic version, therefore, acquires a gyroscopic function: a navigation instrument, always indicating deviations from the “right” course. The content can be instantly updated and breaking news incorporated in older content.
Specialty hand held devices already allow for downloading and storage of vast quantities of data (up to 4000 print pages). The user gains access to libraries containing hundreds of texts, adapted to be downloaded, stored and read by the specific device. Again, a convergence of standards is to be expected in this field as well (the final contenders will probably be Adobe’s PDF against Microsoft’s MS-Reader).
Currently, e-books are dichotomously treated either as:
Continuation of print books (p-books) by other means, or as a whole new publishing universe.
Since p-books are a more convenient medium then e-books – they will prevail in any straightforward “medium replacement” or “medium displacement” battle.
In other words, if publishers will persist in the simple and straightforward conversion of p-books to e-books – then e-books are doomed. They are simply inferior and cannot offer the comfort, tactile delights, browseability and scanability of p-books.
But e-books – being digital – open up a vista of hitherto neglected possibilities. These will only be enhanced and enriched by the introduction of e-paper and e-ink. Among them:
Hyperlinks within the e-book and without it – to web content, reference works, etc.; 
Embedded instant shopping and ordering links; 
Divergent, user-interactive, decision driven plotlines; 
Interaction with other e-books (using a wireless standard) – collaborative authoring or reading groups; 
Interaction with other e-books – gaming and community activities; 
Automatically or periodically updated content; 
Multimedia; 
Database, Favourites, Annotations, and History Maintenance (archival records of reading habits, shopping habits, interaction with other readers, plot related decisions and much more); 
Automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation capabilities; 
Full wireless piconetworking and scatternetworking capabilities. 
The technology is still not fully there. Wars rage in both the wireless and the e-book realms. Platforms compete. Standards clash. Gurus debate. But convergence is inevitable and with it the e-book of the future.
G. The Archive Function
The Internet is also the world’s biggest cemetery: tens of thousands of deadbeat sites, still accessible – the “Ghost Sites” of this electronic frontier.
This, in a way, is collective memory. One of the Internet’s main functions will be to preserve and transfer knowledge through time. It is called “memory” in biology – and “archive” in library science. The history of the Internet is being documented by search engines (Google) and specialized services (Alexa) alike.
3. The Internet as a Collective Nervous System
Drawing a comparison from the development of a human infant – the human race has just commenced to develop its neural system.
The Internet fulfils all the functions of the Nervous System in the body and is, both functionally and structurally, pretty similar. It is decentralized, redundant (each part can serve as functional backup in case of malfunction). It hosts information which is accessible through various paths, it contains a memory function, it is multimodal (multimedia – textual, visual, audio and animation).
I believe that the comparison is not superficial and that studying the functions of the brain (from infancy to adulthood) is likely to shed light on the future of the Net itself. The Net – exactly like the nervous system – provides pathways for the transport of goods and services – but also of memes and information, their processing, modeling, and integration.
A. The Collective Computer
Carrying the metaphor of “a collective brain” further, we would expect the processing of information to take place on the Internet, rather than inside the end-user’s hardware (the same way that information is processed in the brain, not in the eyes). Desktops will receive results and communicate with the Net to receive additional clarifications and instructions and to convey information gathered from their environment (mostly, from the user).
Put differently:
In future, servers will contain not only information (as they do today) – but also software applications. The user of an application will not be forced to buy it. He will not be driven into hardware-related expenditures to accommodate the ever growing size of applications. He will not find himself wasting his scarce memory and computing resources on passive storage. Instead, he will use a browser to call a central computer. This computer will contain the needed software, broken to its elements (=applets, small applications). Anytime the user wishes to use one of the functions of the application, he will siphon it off the central computer. When finished – he will “return” it. Processing speeds and response times will be such that the user will not feel at all that he is not interacting with his own software (the question of ownership will be very blurred). This technology is available and it provoked a heated debated about the future shape of the computing industry as a whole (desktops – really power packs – or network computers, a little more than dumb terminals). Access to online applications are already offered to corporate users by ASPs (Application Service Providers).
In the last few years, scientists have harnessed the combined power of online PC’s to perform astounding feats of distributed parallel processing. Millions of PCs connected to the net co-process signals from outer space, meteorological data, and solve complex equations. This is a prime example of a collective brain in action.
B. The Intranet – a Logical Extension of the Collective Computer
LANs (Local Area Networks) are no longer a rarity in corporate offices. WANs (wide Area Networks) are used to connect geographically dispersed organs of the same legal entity (branches of a bank, daughter companies of a conglomerate, a sales force). Many LANs and WANs are going wireless.
The wireless intranet/extranet and LANs are the wave of the future. They will gradually eliminate their fixed line counterparts. The Internet offers equal, platform-independent, location-independent and time of day – independent access to corporate memory and nervous system. Sophisticated firewall security applications protect the privacy and confidentiality of the intranet from all but the most determined and savvy crackers.
The Intranet is an inter-organizational communication network, constructed on the platform of the Internet and it, therefore, enjoys all its advantages. The extranet is open to clients and suppliers as well.
The company’s server can be accessed by anyone authorized, from anywhere, at any time (with local – rather than international – communication costs). The user can leave messages (internal e-mail or v-mail), access information – proprietary or public – from it, and participate in “virtual teamwork” (see next chapter).
The development of measures to safeguard server routed inter-organizational communication (firewalls) is the solution to one of two obstacles to the institutionalization of Intranets. The second problem is the limited bandwidth which does not permit the efficient transfer of audio (not to mention video).
It is difficult to conduct video conferencing through the Internet. Even the voices of discussants who use internet phones (IP telephony) come out (though very slightly) distorted.
All this did not prevent 95% of the Fortune 1000 from installing intranet. 82% of the rest intend to install one by the end of this year. Medium to big size American firms have 50-100 intranet terminals per every internet one.
One of the greatest advantages of the intranet is the ability to transfer documents between the various parts of an organization. Consider Visa: it pushed 2 million documents per day internally in 1996.
An organization equipped with an intranet can (while protected by firewalls) give its clients or suppliers access to non-classified correspondence, or inventory systems. Many B2B exchanges and industry-specific purchasing management systems are based on extranets.
C. The Transport of Information – Mail and Chat
The Internet (its e-mail function) is eroding traditional mail. 90% of customers with on-line access use e-mail from time to time and 60% work with it regularly. More than 2 billion messages traverse the internet daily.
E-mail applications are available as freeware and are included in all browsers. Thus, the Internet has completely assimilated what used to be a separate service, to the extent that many people make the mistake of thinking that e-mail is a feature of the Internet.
The internet will do to phone calls what it has done to mail. Already there are applications (Intel’s, Vocaltec’s, Net2Phone) which enable the user to conduct a phone conversation through his computer. The voice quality has improved. The discussants can cut into each others words, argue and listen to tonal nuances. Today, the parties (two or more) engaging in the conversation must possess the same software and the same (computer) hardware. In the very near future, computer-to-regular phone applications will eliminate this requirement. And, again, simultaneous multi-modality: the user can talk over the phone, see his party, send e-mail, receive messages and transfer documents – without obstructing the flow of the conversation.
The cost of transferring voice will become so negligible that free voice traffic is conceivable in 3-5 years. Data traffic will overtake voice traffic by a wide margin.
The next phase will probably involve virtual reality. Each of the parties will be represented by an “avatar”, a 3-D figurine generated by the application (or the user’s likeness mapped and superimposed on the the avatar). These figurines will be multi-dimensional: they will possess their own communication patterns, special habits, history, preferences – in short: their own “personality”.
Thus, they will be able to maintain an “identity” and a consistent pattern of communication which they will develop over time.
Such a figure could host a site, accept, welcome and guide visitors, all the time bearing their preferences in its electronic “mind”. It could narrate the news, like the digital anchor “Ananova” does. Visiting sites in the future is bound to be a much more pleasant affair.
D. The Transport of Value – E-cash
In 1996, four corporate giants (Visa, MasterCard, Netscape and Microsoft) agreed on a standard for effecting secure payments through the Internet: SET. Internet commerce is supposed to mushroom to $25 billion by 2003. Site owners will be able to collect rent from passing visitors – or fees for services provided within the site. Amazon instituted an honour system to collect donations from visitors. PayPal provides millions of users with cash substitutes. Gradually, the Internet will compete with central banks and banking systems in money creation and transfer.
E. The Transport of Interactions – The Virtual Organization
The Internet allows for simultaneous communication and the efficient transfer of multimedia (video included) files between an unlimited number of users. This opens up a vista of mind boggling opportunities which are the real core of the Internet revolution: the virtual collaborative (“Follow the Sun”) modes.
Examples:
A group of musicians is able to compose music or play it – while spatially and temporally separated;
Advertising agencies are able to co-produce ad campaigns in a real time interaction;
Cinema and TV films are produced from disparate geographical spots through the teamwork of people who never meet, except through the Net.
These examples illustrate the concept of the “virtual community”. Space and time will no longer hinder team collaboration, be it scientific, artistic, cultural, or an ad hoc arrangement for the provision of a service (a virtual law firm, or accounting office, or a virtual consultancy network). The intranet can also be thought of as a “virtual organization”, or a “virtual business”.
The virtual mall and the virtual catalogue are prime examples of spatial and temporal liberation.
In 1998, there were well over 300 active virtual malls on the Internet. In 2000, they were frequented by 46 million shoppers, who shopped in them for goods and services.
The virtual mall is an Internet “space” (pages) wherein “shops” are located. These shops offer their wares using visual, audio and textual means. The visitor passes through a virtual “gate” or storefront and examines the merchandise on offer, until he reaches a buying decision. Then he engages in a feedback process: he pays (with a credit card), buys the product, and waits for it to arrive by mail (or downloads it).
The manufacturers of digital products (intellectual property such as e-books or software) have begun selling their merchandise on-line, as file downloads. Yet, slow communications speeds, competing file formats and reader standards, and limited bandwidth – constrain the growth potential of this mode of sale. Once resolved – intellectual property will be sold directly from the Net, on-line. Until such time, the mediation of the Post Office is still required. As long as this is the state of the art, the virtual mall is nothing but a glorified computerized mail catalogue or Buying Channel, the only difference being the exceptionally varied inventory.
Websites which started as “specialty stores” are fast transforming themselves into multi-purpose virtual malls. Amazon.com, for instance, has bought into a virtual pharmacy and into other virtual businesses. It is now selling music, video, electronics and many other products. It started as a bookstore.
This contrasts with a much more creative idea: the virtual catalogue. It is a form of narrowcasting (as opposed to broadcasting): a surgically accurate targeting of potential consumer audiences. Each group of profiled consumers (no matter how small) is fitted with their own – digitally generated – catalogue. This is updated daily: the variety of wares on offer (adjusted to reflect inventory levels, consumer preferences, and goods in transit) – and prices (sales, discounts, package deals) change in real time. Amazon has incorporated many of these features on its web site. The user enters its web site and there delineates his consumption profile and his preferences. A customized catalogue is immediately generated for him including specific recommendations. The history of his purchases, preferences and responses to feedback questionnaires is accumulated in a database. This intellectual property may well be Amazon’s main asset.
There is no technological obstacles to implementing this vision today – only administrative and legal (patent) ones. Big brick and mortar retail stores are not up to processing the flood of data expected to result. They also remain highly sceptical regarding the feasibility of the new medium. And privacy issues prevent data mining or the effective collection and usage of personal data (remember the case of Amazon’s “Readers’ Circles”).
The virtual catalogue is a private case of a new internet off-shoot: the “smart (shopping) agents”. These are AI applications with “long memories”.
They draw detailed profiles of consumers and users and then suggest purchases and refer to the appropriate sites, catalogues, or virtual malls.
They also provide price comparisons and the new generation cannot be blocked or fooled by using differing product categories.
In the future, these agents will cover also brick and mortar retail chains and, in conjunction with wireless, location-specific services, issue a map of the branch or store closest to an address specified by the user (the default being his residence), or yielded by his GPS enabled wireless mobile or PDA. This technology can be seen in action in a few music sites on the web and is likely to be dominant with wireless internet appliances. The owner of an internet enabled (third generation) mobile phone is likely to be the target of geographically-specific marketing campaigns, ads and special offers pertaining to his current location (as reported by his GPS – satellite Geographic Positioning System).
F. The Transport of Information – Internet News
Internet news are advantaged. They are frequently and dynamically updated (unlike static print news) and are always accessible (similar to print news), immediate and fresh.
The future will witness a form of interactive news. A special “corner” in the news Web site will accommodate “breaking news” posted by members of the the public (or corporate press releases). This will provide readers with a glimpse into the making of the news, the raw material news are made of. The same technology will be applied to interactive TVs. Content will be downloaded from the internet and displayed as an overlay on the TV screen or in a box in it. The contents downloaded will be directly connected to the TV programming. Thus, the biography and track record of a football player will be displayed during a football match and the history of a country when it gets news coverage.
4. Terra Internetica – Internet, an Unknown Continent
Laymen and experts alike talk about “sites” and “advertising space”. Yet, the Internet was never compared to a new continent whose surface is infinite.
The Internet has its own real estate developers and construction companies. The real life equivalents derive their profits from the scarcity of the resource that they exploit – the Internet counterparts derive their profits from the tenants (content producers and distributors, e-tailers, and others).
Entrepreneurs bought “Internet Space” (pages, domain names, portals) and leveraged their acquisition commercially by:
Renting space out; 
Constructing infrastructure on their property and selling it; 
Providing an intelligent gateway, entry point (portal) to the rest of the internet; 
Selling advertising space which subsidizes the tenants (Yahoo!-Geocities, Tripod and others); 
Cybersquatting (purchasing specific domain names identical to brand names in the “real” world) and then selling the domain name to an interested party. 
Internet Space can be easily purchased or created. The investment is low and getting lower with the introduction of competition in the field of domain registration services and the increase in the number of top domains.
Then, infrastructure can be erected – for a shopping mall, for free home pages, for a portal, or for another purpose. It is precisely this infrastructure that the developer can later sell, lease, franchise, or rent out.
But this real estate bubble was the culmination of a long and tortuous process.
At the beginning, only members of the fringes and the avant-garde (inventors, risk assuming entrepreneurs, gamblers) invest in a new invention. No one knows to say what are the optimal uses of the invention (in other words, what is its future). Many – mostly members of the scientific and business elites – argue that there is no real need for the invention and that it substitutes a new and untried way for old and tried modes of doing the same things (so why assume the risk of investing in the unknown and the untried?).
Moreover, these criticisms are usually well-founded.
To start with, there is, indeed, no need for the new medium. A new medium invents itself – and the need for it. It also generates its own market to satisfy this newly found need.
Two prime examples of this self-recursive process are the personal computer and the compact disc.
When the PC was invented, its uses were completely unclear. Its performance was lacking, its abilities limited, it was unbearably user unfriendly. It suffered from faulty design, was absent any user comfort and ease of use and required considerable professional knowledge to operate. The worst part was that this knowledge was exclusive to the new invention (not portable). It reduced labour mobility and limited one’s professional horizons. There were many gripes among workers assigned to tame the new beast. Managers regarded it at best as a nuisance.
The PC was thought of, at the beginning, as a sophisticated gaming machine, an electronic baby-sitter. It included a keyboard, so it was thought of in terms of a glorified typewriter or spreadsheet. It was used mainly as a word processor (and the outlay justified solely on these grounds). The spreadsheet was the first real PC application and it demonstrated the advantages inherent to this new machine (mainly flexibility and speed). Still, it was more of the same. A speedier sliding ruler. After all, said the unconvinced, what was the difference between this and a hand held calculator (some of them already had computing, memory and programming features)?
The PC was recognized as a medium only 30 years after it was invented with the introduction of multimedia software. All this time, the computer continued to spin off markets and secondary markets, needs and professional specialties. The talk as always was centred on how to improve on existing markets and solutions.
The Internet is the computer’s first important application. Hitherto the computer was only quantitatively different to other computing or gaming devices. Multimedia and the Internet have made it qualitatively superior, sui generis, unique.
Part of the problem was that the Internet was invented, is maintained and is operated by computer professionals. For decades these people have been conditioned to think in Olympic terms: faster, stronger, higher – not in terms of the new, the unprecedented, or the non-existent. Engineers are trained to improve – seldom to invent. With few exceptions, its creators stumbled across the Internet – it invented itself despite them.
Computer professionals (hardware and software experts alike) – are linear thinkers. The Internet is non linear and modular.
It is still the age of hackers. There is still a lot to be done in improving technological prowess and powers. But their control of the contents is waning and they are being gradually replaced by communicators, creative people, advertising executives, psychologists, venture capitalists, and the totally unpredictable masses who flock to flaunt their home pages and graphomania.
These all are attuned to the user, his mental needs and his information and entertainment preferences.
The compact disc is a different tale. It was intentionally invented to improve upon an existing technology (basically, Edison’s Gramophone). Market-wise, this was a major gamble. The improvement was, at first, debatable (many said that the sound quality of the first generation of compact discs was inferior to that of its contemporaneous record players). Consumers had to be convinced to change both software and hardware and to dish out thousands of dollars just to listen to what the manufacturers claimed was more a authentically reproduced sound. A better argument was the longer life of the software (though when contrasted with the limited life expectancy of the consumer, some of the first sales pitches sounded absolutely morbid).
The computer suffered from unclear positioning. The compact disc was very clear as to its main functions – but had a rough time convincing the consumers that it was needed.
Every medium is first controlled by the technical people. Gutenberg was a printer – not a publisher. Yet, he is the world’s most famous publisher. The technical cadre is joined by dubious or small-scale entrepreneurs and, together, they establish ventures with no clear vision, market-oriented thinking, or orderly plan of action. The legislator is also dumbfounded and does not grasp what is happening – thus, there is no legislation to regulate the use of the medium. Witness the initial confusion concerning copyrighted vs. licenced software, e-books, and the copyrights of ROM embedded software. Abuse or under-utilization of resources grow. The sale of radio frequencies to the first cellular phone operators in the West – a situation which repeats itself in Eastern and Central Europe nowadays – is an example.
But then more complex transactions – exactly as in real estate in “real life” – begin to emerge. The Internet is likely to converge with “real life”. It is likely to be dominated by brick and mortar entities which are likely to import their business methods and management. As its eccentric past (the dot.com boom and the dot.bomb bust) recedes – a sustainable and profitable future awaits it.
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</item>
<item>
<title>Working on the Internet and Jobs Online</title>
<link>https://emuzznd.info/working-on-the-internet-and-jobs-online/</link>
<comments>https://emuzznd.info/working-on-the-internet-and-jobs-online/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 11 Mar 2023 17:29:23 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Jobs Online]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Working]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://emuzznd.info/?p=12</guid>
<description><![CDATA[There are many way that you can work on the internet and jobs online are plentiful if you take the time to sort through the scams. Every day you can find thousands of postings for this work at home opportunity … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/working-on-the-internet-and-jobs-online/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[There are many way that you can work on the internet and jobs online are plentiful if you take the time to sort through the scams. Every day you can find thousands of postings for this work at home opportunity or that money making scheme. How can you sort through all of the chaff and really find something that will pay you legitimate money? There are realistic opportunities out there but there is no free lunch. If the offer sounds too good to be true, it is probably not a legitimate opportunity.
Who can benefit from working online? With the economy languishing in the doldrums and unemployment high throughout the nation, online jobs are an attractive alternative to more traditional employment. Working online is a job however and needs to have a personal commitment. You need to learn about running a business, take care of all your tax and income tracking procedures and overcome the tendency of most people to just relax. Working online has one more issue that is difficult for some to overcome, surfing. It is simple to take a break to check your e-mail and end up chatting on Facebook or checking out the current sports scores. This job takes focus.
Working on the internet and jobs found online can be done with focus and integrity. There are several ways that you can make honest money online. A small income can be made from survey sites. These are places that will pay you to fill out surveys. Each survey is from 10 to 30 questions in length and will pay a modest amount for each completed survey. This will provide you with some walking around cash but a full time living can be hard to reach with this business model.
Affiliate marketing is another business model that has potential for large return. This takes a lot of investment in time but can be done on a small budget and can even be free when you use some of the resources out on the internet. Affiliate marketing is like working for a commission. You sign up with a company and promote their products using your own websites or free sites and blogs. Each time a sale is made from your affiliate link, you earn a commission on the product.
This is a numbers game. You need to drive sufficient targeted traffic to your web properties. Your sales pitch needs to be finely crafted and you need to reach the right audience. When all of these things come together you will start to make money online.
There are more opportunities for working on the internet and jobs online. You can sign up with job boards that will pay for your writing, some pay well but you must be willing to spend the time and do a quality job to get repeat business.
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<item>
<title>The Age of Stupid</title>
<link>https://emuzznd.info/the-age-of-stupid/</link>
<comments>https://emuzznd.info/the-age-of-stupid/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 14 Feb 2023 06:55:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[inordinately]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[of Stupid]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://emuzznd.info/?p=27</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Dumb people have taken over culture and society. We live in a civilization that glorifies and elevates stupid people. The heroes of the previous centuries were all philosophers,Guest Posting scientists, and authors. Our role models are muscle-bound footballers, empty-headed pop … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/the-age-of-stupid/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Dumb people have taken over culture and society.
We live in a civilization that glorifies and elevates stupid people. The heroes of the previous centuries were all philosophers,Guest Posting scientists, and authors. Our role models are muscle-bound footballers, empty-headed pop stars, and rapacious, narcissistic businessmen. This dumbing down of Mankind is the culmination of several trends. I. The Population Bomb
Scholars and decision-makers – once terrified by the Malthusian dystopia of a “population bomb” – are more sanguine now. Advances in agricultural technology eradicated hunger even in teeming places like India and China. And then there is the old idea of progress: birth rates tend to decline with higher education levels and growing incomes. Family planning has had resounding successes in places as diverse as Thailand, China, and western Africa.
In the near past, fecundity used to compensate for infant mortality. As the latter declined – so did the former. Children are means of production in many destitute countries. Hence the inordinately large families of the past – a form of insurance against the economic outcomes of the inevitable demise of some of one’s off-spring.
Yet, despite these trends, the world’s populace is augmented by 80 million people annually. All of them are born to the younger inhabitants of the more penurious corners of the Earth. There were only 1 billion people alive in 1804. The number doubled a century later.
But our last billion – the sixth – required only 12 fertile years. The entire population of Germany is added every half a decade to both India and China. Clearly, Mankind’s growth is out of control, as affirmed in the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development.
Dozens of millions of people regularly starve – many of them to death. In only one corner of the Earth – southern Africa – food aid is the sole subsistence of entire countries. More than 18 million people in Zambia, Malawi, and Angola survived on charitable donations in 1992. More than 10 million expect the same this year, among them the emaciated denizens of erstwhile food exporter, Zimbabwe.
According to Medecins Sans Frontiere, AIDS kills 3 million people a year, Tuberculosis another 2 million. Malaria decimates 2 people every minute. More than 14 million people fall prey to parasitic and infectious diseases every year – 90% of them in the developing countries.
Millions emigrate every year in search of a better life. These massive shifts are facilitated by modern modes of transportation. But, despite these tectonic relocations – and despite famine, disease, and war, the classic Malthusian regulatory mechanisms – the depletion of natural resources – from arable land to water – is undeniable and gargantuan.
Our pressing environmental issues – global warming, water stress, salinization, desertification, deforestation, pollution, loss of biological diversity – and our ominous social ills – crime at the forefront – are traceable to one, politically incorrect, truth:
There are too many of us. We are way too numerous. The population load is unsustainable. We, the survivors, would be better off if others were to perish. Should population growth continue unabated – we are all doomed.
Doomed to what?
Numerous Cassandras and countless Jeremiads have been falsified by history. With proper governance, scientific research, education, affordable medicines, effective family planning, and economic growth, this planet can support even 10-12 billion people. We are not at risk of physical extinction and never have been.
What is hazarded is not our life – but our quality of life. As any insurance actuary will attest, we are governed by statistical datasets.
Consider this single fact:
About 1% of the population suffer from the perniciously debilitating and all-pervasive mental health disorder, schizophrenia. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 16.5 million schizophrenics – nowadays there are 64 million. Their impact on friends, family, and colleagues is exponential – and incalculable. This is not a merely quantitative leap. It is a qualitative phase transition.
Or this:
Large populations lead to the emergence of high density urban centers. It is inefficient to cultivate ever smaller plots of land. Surplus manpower moves to centers of industrial production. A second wave of internal migrants caters to their needs, thus spawning a service sector. Network effects generate excess capital and a virtuous cycle of investment, employment, and consumption ensues.
But over-crowding breeds violence (as has been demonstrated in experiments with mice). The sheer numbers involved serve to magnify and amplify social anomies, deviate behaviour, and antisocial traits. In the city, there are more criminals, more perverts, more victims, more immigrants, and more racists per square mile.
Moreover, only a planned and orderly urbanization is desirable. The blights that pass for cities in most third world countries are the outgrowth of neither premeditation nor method. These mega-cities are infested with non-disposed of waste and prone to natural catastrophes and epidemics.
No one can vouchsafe for a “critical mass” of humans, a threshold beyond which the species will implode and vanish.
II. Democracy 
One person – one vote systems afford stupid people the advantage of sheer quantity: they outnumber the smart, the educated, the expert, and the knowledgeable. Moreover, “democracy” is not the rule of the people. It is government by periodically vetted representatives of the people.
Democracy is not tantamount to a continuous expression of the popular will as it pertains to a range of issues. Functioning and fair democracy is representative and not participatory. Participatory “people power” is mob rule (ochlocracy), not democracy.
Granted, “people power” is often required in order to establish democracy where it is unprecedented. Revolutions – velvet, rose, and orange – recently introduced democracy in Eastern Europe, for instance. People power – mass street demonstrations – toppled obnoxious dictatorships from Iran to the Philippines and from Peru to Indonesia.
But once the institutions of democracy are in place and more or less functional, the people can and must rest. They should let their chosen delegates do the job they were elected to do. And they must hold their emissaries responsible and accountable in fair and free ballots once every two or four or five years.
Democracy and the rule of law are bulwarks against “the tyranny of the mighty (the privileged elites)”. But, they should not yield a “dictatorship of the weak and the stupid”.
III. Materialism 
Why did the Beatles generate more income in one year than Albert Einstein did throughout his long career?
The reflexive answer is:
How many bands like the Beatles were there?
But, on second reflection, how many scientists like Einstein were there?
Rarity or scarcity cannot, therefore, explain the enormous disparity in remuneration.
Then let’s try this:
Music and football and films are more accessible to laymen than physics. Very little effort is required in order to master the rules of sports, for instance. Hence the mass appeal of entertainment – and its disproportionate revenues. Mass appeal translates to media exposure and the creation of marketable personal brands (think Beckham, or Tiger Woods).
Yet, surely the Internet is as accessible as baseball. Why did none of the scientists involved in its creation become a multi-billionaire?
Because they are secretly hated by the multitudes.
People resent the elitism and the arcane nature of modern science. This pent-up resentment translates into anti-intellectualism, Luddism, and ostentatious displays of proud ignorance. People prefer the esoteric and pseudo-sciences to the real and daunting thing.
Consumers perceive entertainment and entertainers as “good”, “human”, “like us”. We feel that there is no reason, in principle, why we can’t become instant celebrities. Conversely, there are numerous obstacles to becoming an Einstein.
Consequently, science has an austere, distant, inhuman, and relentless image. The uncompromising pursuit of truth provokes paranoia in the uninitiated. Science is invariably presented in pop culture as evil, or, at the very least, dangerous (recall genetically-modified foods, cloning, nuclear weapons, toxic waste, and global warming).
Egghead intellectuals and scientists are treated as aliens. They are not loved – they are feared. Underpaying them is one way of reducing them to size and controlling their potentially pernicious or subversive activities.
The penury of the intellect is guaranteed by the anti-capitalistic ethos of science. Scientific knowledge and discoveries must be instantly and selflessly shared with colleagues and the world at large. The fruits of science belong to the community, not to the scholar who labored to yield them. It is a self-interested corporate sham, of course. Firms and universities own patents and benefit from them financially – but these benefits rarely accrue to individual researchers.
Additionally, modern technology has rendered intellectual property a public good. Books, other texts, and scholarly papers are non-rivalrous (can be consumed numerous time without diminishing or altering) and non-exclusive. The concept of “original” or “one time phenomenon” vanishes with reproducibility. After all, what is the difference between the first copy of a treatise and the millionth one?
Attempts to reverse these developments (for example, by extending copyright laws or litigating against pirates) usually come to naught. Not only do scientists and intellectuals subsist on low wages – they cannot even augment their income by selling books or other forms of intellectual property.
Thus impoverished and lacking in future prospects, their numbers are in steep decline. We are descending into a dark age of diminishing innovation and pulp “culture”. The media’s attention is equally divided between sports, politics, music, and films.
One is hard pressed to find even a mention of the sciences, literature, or philosophy anywhere but on dedicated channels and “supplements”. Intellectually challenging programming is shunned by both the print and the electronic media as a matter of policy. Literacy has plummeted even in the industrial and rich West.
In the horror movie that our world had become, economic development policy is decided by Bob Geldof, the US Presidency is entrusted to the B-movies actor Ronald Reagan , our reading tastes are dictated by Oprah, and California’s future is steered by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
IV. The Demise of the Work Ethic 
Airplanes, missiles, and space shuttles crash due to lack of maintenance, absent-mindedness, and pure ignorance. Software support personnel, aided and abetted by Customer Relationship Management application suites, are curt (when reachable) and unhelpful. Despite expensive, state of the art supply chain management systems, retailers, suppliers, and manufacturers habitually run out of stocks of finished and semi-finished products and raw materials. People from all walks of life and at all levels of the corporate ladder skirt their responsibilities and neglect their duties.
Whatever happened to the work ethic? Where is the pride in the immaculate quality of one’s labor and produce?
Both dead in the water. A series of earth-shattering social, economic, and technological trends converged to render their jobs loathsome to many – a tedious nuisance best avoided.
1. Job security is a thing of the past. Itinerancy in various McJobs reduces the incentive to invest time, effort, and resources into a position that may not be yours next week. Brutal layoffs and downsizing traumatized the workforce and produced in the typical workplace a culture of obsequiousness, blind obeisance, the suppression of independent thought and speech, and avoidance of initiative and innovation. Many offices and shop floors now resemble prisons.
2. Outsourcing and offshoring of back office (and, more recently, customer relations and research and development) functions sharply and adversely effected the quality of services from helpdesks to airline ticketing and from insurance claims processing to remote maintenance. Cultural mismatches between the (typically Western) client base and the offshore service department (usually in a developing country where labor is cheap and plenty) only exacerbated the breakdown of trust between customer and provider or supplier.
3. The populace in developed countries are addicted to leisure time. Most people regard their jobs as a necessary evil, best avoided whenever possible. Hence phenomena like the permanent temp – employees who prefer a succession of temporary assignments to holding a proper job. The media and the arts contribute to this perception of work as a drag – or a potentially dangerous addiction (when they portray raging and abusive workaholics).
4. The other side of this dismal coin is workaholism – the addiction to work. Far from valuing it, these addicts resent their dependence. The job performance of the typical workaholic leaves a lot to be desired. Workaholics are fatigued, suffer from ancillary addictions, and short attention spans. They frequently abuse substances, are narcissistic and destructively competitive (being driven, they are incapable of team work).
5. The depersonalization of manufacturing – the intermediated divorce between the artisan/worker and his client – contributed a lot to the indifference and alienation of the common industrial worker, the veritable “anonymous cog in the machine”.
Not only was the link between worker and product broken – but the bond between artisan and client was severed as well. Few employees know their customers or patrons first hand. It is hard to empathize with and care about a statistic, a buyer whom you have never met and never likely to encounter. It is easy in such circumstances to feel immune to the consequences of one’s negligence and apathy at work. It is impossible to be proud of what you do and to be committed to your work – if you never set eyes on either the final product or the customer! Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece, “Modern Times” captured this estrangement brilliantly.
6. Many former employees of mega-corporations abandon the rat race and establish their own businesses – small and home enterprises. Undercapitalized, understaffed, and outperformed by the competition, these fledging and amateurish outfits usually spew out shoddy products and lamentable services – only to expire within the first year of business.
7. Despite decades of advanced notice, globalization caught most firms the world over by utter surprise. Ill-prepared and fearful of the onslaught of foreign competition, companies big and small grapple with logistical nightmares, supply chain calamities, culture shocks and conflicts, and rapacious competitors. Mere survival (and opportunistic managerial plunder) replaced client satisfaction as the prime value.
8. The decline of the professional guilds on the one hand and the trade unions on the other hand greatly reduced worker self-discipline, pride, and peer-regulated quality control. Quality is monitored by third parties or compromised by being subjected to Procrustean financial constraints and concerns.
The investigation of malpractice and its punishment are now at the hand of vast and ill-informed bureaucracies, either corporate or governmental. Once malpractice is exposed and admitted to, the availability of malpractice insurance renders most sanctions unnecessary or toothless. Corporations prefer to bury mishaps and malfeasance rather than cope with and rectify them.
9. The quality of one’s work, and of services and products one consumed, used to be guaranteed. One’s personal idiosyncrasies, eccentricities, and problems were left at home. Work was sacred and one’s sense of self-worth depended on the satisfaction of one’s clients. You simply didn’t let your personal life affect the standards of your output.
This strict and useful separation vanished with the rise of the malignant-narcissistic variant of individualism. It led to the emergence of idiosyncratic and fragmented standards of quality. No one knows what to expect, when, and from whom. Transacting business has become a form of psychological warfare. The customer has to rely on the goodwill of suppliers, manufacturers, and service providers – and often finds himself at their whim and mercy. “The client is always right” has gone the way of the dodo. “It’s my (the supplier’s or provider’s) way or the highway” rules supreme.
This uncertainty is further exacerbated by the pandemic eruption of mental health disorders – 15% of the population are severely pathologized according to the latest studies. Antisocial behaviors – from outright crime to pernicious passive-aggressive sabotage – once rare in the workplace, are now abundant.
The ethos of teamwork, tempered collectivism, and collaboration for the greater good is now derided or decried. Conflict on all levels has replaced negotiated compromise and has become the prevailing narrative. Litigiousness, vigilante justice, use of force, and “getting away with it” are now extolled. Yet, conflicts lead to the misallocation of economic resources. They are non-productive and not conducive to sustaining good relations between producer or provider and consumer.
10. Moral relativism is the mirror image of rampant individualism. Social cohesion and discipline diminished, ideologies and religions crumbled, and anomic states substituted for societal order. The implicit contracts between manufacturer or service provider and customer and between employee and employer were shredded and replaced with ad-hoc negotiated operational checklists. Social decoherence is further enhanced by the anonymization and depersonalization of the modern chain of production (see point 5 above).
Nowadays, people facilely and callously abrogate their responsibilities towards their families, communities, and nations. The mushrooming rate of divorce, the decline in personal thrift, the skyrocketing number of personal bankruptcies, and the ubiquity of venality and corruption both corporate and political are examples of such dissipation. No one seems to care about anything. Why should the client or employer expect a different treatment?
As Weber observed largely correctly, the Protestant work ethic underlies the rise of modern capitalism. Calvinism regarded work as a form of worship and success as proof of divine approval. Protestants of all creeds valued time – God’s-given gift – and sought to maximize its benefits.
But the Puritan and Non-conformist empathic values of a Commonwealth wherein everyone is equal before God and therefore deserves to be treated well and with respect were abandoned along the way. Even the infusion of Jewish values – charity, community, industriousness, the idea of progress and self-betterment, learning, and pragmatism – in the late 19th century failed to stop the erosion in communality and the rise of malignant, short-sighted narcissism, the anathema of the work ethic.
11. The disintegration of the educational systems of the West made it difficult for employers to find qualified and motivated personnel. Courtesy, competence, ambition, personal responsibility, the ability to see the bigger picture (synoptic view), interpersonal aptitude, analytic and synthetic skills, not to mention numeracy, literacy, access to technology, and the sense of belonging which they foster – are all products of proper schooling.
12. Irrational beliefs, pseudo-sciences, and the occult rushed in to profitably fill the vacuum left by the crumbling education systems. These wasteful preoccupations encourage in their followers an overpowering sense of fatalistic determinism and hinder their ability to exercise judgment and initiative. The discourse of commerce and finance relies on unmitigated rationality and is, in essence, contractual. Irrationality is detrimental to the successful and happy exchange of goods and services.
13. Employers place no premium on work ethic. Workers don’t get paid more or differently if they are more conscientious, or more efficient, or more friendly. In an interlinked, globalized world, customers are fungible. There are so many billions of potential clients that customer loyalty has been rendered irrelevant. Marketing, showmanship, and narcissistic bluster are far better appreciated by workplaces because they serve to attract clientele to be bilked and then discarded or ignored.
V. Technology
Whenever I put forth on the Internet’s numerous newsgroups, discussion fora and Websites a controversial view, an iconoclastic opinion, or a much-disputed thesis, the winning argument against my propositions starts with “everyone knows that …”. For a self-styled nonconformist medium, the Internet is the reification of herd mentality.
Actually, it is founded on the rather explicit belief in the implicit wisdom of the masses. This particularly pernicious strong version of egalitarianism postulates that veracity, accuracy, and truth are emergent phenomena, the inevitable and, therefore, guaranteed outcome of multiple interactions between users.
But the population of Internet users is not comprised of representative samples of experts in every discipline. Quite the contrary. The barriers to entry are so low that the Internet attracts those less gifted intellectually. It is a filter that lets in the stupid, the mentally ill, the charlatan and scammer, the very young, the bored, and the unqualified. It is far easier to publish a blog, for instance, than to write for the New York Times. Putting up a Website with all manner of spurious claims for knowledge or experience is easy compared to the peer review process that vets and culls scientific papers.
One can ever “contribute” to an online “encyclopedia”, the Wikipedia, without the slightest acquaintance the topic one is “editing”. Consequently, the other day, I discovered, to my utter shock, that Eichmann changed his name, posthumously, to Otto. It used to be Karl Adolf, at least until he was executed in 1962.
Granted, there are on the Internet isolated islands of academic merit, intellectually challenging and invigorating discourse, and true erudition or even scholarship. But they are mere islets in the tsunami of falsities, fatuity, and inanities that constitutes the bulk of User Generated Content (UGC).
Which leads me to the second myth: that access is progress.
Oceans of information are today at the fingertips of one and sundry. This is undisputed. The Internet is a vast storehouse of texts, images, audio recordings, and databases. But what matters is whether people make good use of this serendipitous cornucopia. A savage who finds himself amidst the collections of the Library of Congress is unlikely to benefit much.
Alas, most people today are cultural savages, Internet users the more so. They are lost among the dazzling riches that surround them. Rather than admit to their inferiority and accept their need to learn and improve, they claim “equal status”. It is a form of rampant pathological narcissism, a defense mechanism that is aimed to fend off the injury of admitting to one’s inadequacies and limitations.
Internet users have developed an ethos of anti-elitism. There are no experts, only opinions, there are no hard data, only poll results. Everyone is equally suited to contribute to any subject. Learning and scholarship are frowned on or even actively discouraged. The public’s taste has completely substituted for good taste. Yardsticks, classics, science – have all been discarded.
Study after study have demonstrated clearly the decline of functional literacy (the ability to read and understand labels, simple instructions, and very basic texts) even as literacy (in other words, repeated exposure to the alphabet) has increased dramatically all over the world.
In other words: most people know how to read but precious few understand what they are reading. Yet, even the most illiterate, bolstered by the Internet’s mob-rule, insist that their interpretation of the texts they do not comprehend is as potent and valid as anyone else’s.
Web 2.0 – Hoarding, Not Erudition
When I was growing up in a slum in Israel, I devoutly believed that knowledge and education will set me free and catapult me from my miserable circumstances into a glamorous world of happy learning. But now, as an adult, I find myself in an alien universe where functional literacy is non-existent even in developed countries, where “culture” means merely sports and music, where science is decried as evil and feared by increasingly hostile and aggressive masses, and where irrationality in all its forms (religiosity, the occult, conspiracy theories) flourishes.
The few real scholars and intellectuals left are on the retreat, back into the ivory towers of a century ago. Increasingly, their place is taken by self-taught “experts”, narcissistic bloggers, wannabe “authors” and “auteurs”, and partisan promoters of (often self-beneficial) “causes”. The mob thus empowered and complimented feels vindicated and triumphant. But history cautions us that mobs have never produced enlightenment – only concentration camps and bloodied revolutions. the Internet can and will be used against us if we don’t regulate it.
Dismal results ensue:
The Wikipedia “encyclopedia” – a repository of millions of factoids, interspersed with juvenile trivia, plagiarism, bigotry, and malice – is “edited” by anonymous users with unlimited access to its contents and absent or fake credentials.
Hoarding has replaced erudition everywhere. People hoard e-books, mp3 tracks, and photos. They memorize numerous fact and “facts” but can’t tell the difference between them or connect the dots. The synoptic view of knowledge, the interconnectivity of data, the emergence of insight from treasure-troves of information are all lost arts.
In an interview in early 2007, the publisher of the New-York Times said that he wouldn’t mourn the death of the print edition of the venerable paper and its replacement by a digital one. This nonchalant utterance betrays unfathomable ignorance. Online readers are vastly different to consumers of printed matter: they are younger, their attention span is far shorter, their interests far more restricted and frivolous. The New-York Times online will be forced into becoming a tabloid – or perish altogether.
Fads like environmentalism and alternative “medicine” spread malignantly and seek to silence dissidents, sometimes by violent means.
The fare served by the electronic media everywhere now consists largely of soap operas, interminable sports events, and reality TV shows. True, niche cable channels cater to the preferences of special audiences. But, as a result of this inauspicious fragmentation, far fewer viewers are exposed to programs and features on science, literature, arts, or international affairs.
Reading is on terminal decline. People spend far more in front of screens – both television’s and computer – than leafing through pages. Granted, they read online: jokes, anecdotes, puzzles, porn, and e-mail or IM chit-chat. Those who try to tackle longer bits of text, tire soon and revert to images or sounds.
With few exceptions, the “new media” are a hodgepodge of sectarian views and fabricated “news”. The few credible sources of reliable information have long been drowned in a cacophony of fakes and phonies or gone out of business.
It is a sad mockery of the idea of progress. The more texts we make available online, the more research is published, the more books are written – the less educated people are, the more they rely on visuals and soundbites rather than the written word, the more they seek to escape reality and be anesthetized rather than be challenged and provoked.
Even the ever-slimming minority who do wish to be enlightened are inundated by a suffocating and unmanageable avalanche of indiscriminate data, comprised of both real and pseudo-science. There is no way to tell the two apart, so a “democracy of knowledge” reigns where everyone is equally qualified and everything goes and is equally merited. This relativism is dooming the twenty-first century to become the beginning of a new “Dark Age”, hopefully a mere interregnum between two periods of genuine enlightenment.
The Demise of the Expert and the Ascendance of the Layman
In the age of Web 2.0, authoritative expertise is slowly waning. The layman reasserts herself as a fount of collective mob “wisdom”. Information – unsorted, raw, sometimes wrong – substitutes for structured, meaningful knowledge. Gatekeepers – intellectuals, academics, scientists, and editors, publishers, record companies, studios – are summarily and rudely dispensed with. Crowdsourcing (user-generated content, aggregated for commercial ends by online providers) replaces single authorship.
A confluence of trends conspired to bring about these ominous developments:
1. An increasingly narcissistic culture that encourages self-absorption, haughtiness, defiance of authority, a sense of entitlement to special treatment and omniscience, incommensurate with actual achievements. Narcissistic and vain Internet users feel that they are superior and reject all claims to expertise by trained professionals. 2. The emergence of technologies that remove all barriers to entry and allow equal rights and powers to all users, regardless of their qualifications, knowledge, or skills: wikis (the most egregious manifestation of which is the Wikipedia), search engines (Google), blogging (that is rapidly supplanting professionally-written media), and mobiles (cell) phones equipped with cameras for ersatz documentation and photojournalism. Disintermediation rendered redundant all brokers, intermediaries, and gatekeepers of knowledge and quality of content.3. A series of species-threatening debacles by scientists and experts who collaborated with the darkest, vilest, and most evil regimes humanity has ever produced. This sell-out compromised their moral authority and standing. The common folk began not only to question their ethical credentials and claim to intellectual leadership, but also to paranoidally suspect their motives and actions, supervise, and restrict them. Spates of scandals by scientists who falsified lab reports and intellectuals who plagiarized earlier works did nothing to improve the image of academe and its denizens.
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<title>Internet and Businesses Online – How to Choose a Unique Angle for Your Niche Market</title>
<link>https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-businesses-online-how-to-choose-a-unique-angle-for-your-niche-market/</link>
<comments>https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-businesses-online-how-to-choose-a-unique-angle-for-your-niche-market/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 11 Feb 2023 17:29:23 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Businesses Online]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Niche Market]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Unique Angle]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://emuzznd.info/?p=13</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This is important, especially if you are in a niche area that already has some number of marketers, as I believe is the case today. So what do I mean by choosing an angle? What do I mean by ‘angle’? … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-businesses-online-how-to-choose-a-unique-angle-for-your-niche-market/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[This is important, especially if you are in a niche area that already has some number of marketers, as I believe is the case today.
So what do I mean by choosing an angle? What do I mean by ‘angle’?
You must be able to differentiate yourself from everyone else in the market. You must be able to offer something that others do not – that is your angle.
Have you noticed how, out of the 100′s of emails you receive daily, that you only open a few of them – and that it has nothing to do with headlines or font – but that it has to do with who sent the email?
You recognize the sender of the email, you like something about that person or their service, so you read their emails. And you buy their products. Why? You like their angle. Whatever it is they do different, and you like it, that is their unique angle, and it is the reason you read their emails and buy their products.
So how do you choose an angle?
What do you do well? Are you good at simplifying things? If so, your angle could be to simplify things in your niche and market to beginners.
Maybe you are the type that can make sense out of really complicated things – your angle could be to produce materials that make complicated processes in your niche seem easy.
Do you like to teach people how to do things? Maybe your angle is that you offer specialized training in your niche.
Do you have a knack with words? Maybe your angle is that your emails have a special feel to them, created by your ease of use of your language.
Maybe your angle could be that you offer a collection of free items that other marketers’ sell, and you offer them free to your subscribers.
Maybe your angle is that you offer obscure and hard to find information for free or a reduced price.
Find or create your angle – and then keep that angle first and foremost in your mind in everything you do for your niche list building.
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<title>Internet and Businesses Online – Making Money Online</title>
<link>https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-businesses-online-making-money-online/</link>
<comments>https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-businesses-online-making-money-online/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jan 2023 17:29:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Social Networking]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Spam Blocker]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Traffic Building]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Video Marketing]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Video Streaming]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Web Design]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Web Development]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Web Hosting]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://emuzznd.info/?p=14</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Making money online has become a fast growing trend these days. More and more people now look to the internet to reach people. These are prospects that never existed before, and now the opportunity to turn them into customers is … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-businesses-online-making-money-online/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Making money online has become a fast growing trend these days. More and more people now look to the internet to reach people. These are prospects that never existed before, and now the opportunity to turn them into customers is here because of the power of the World Wide Web.
This steady rise of doing business online and the number of people who now rely on the internet and online businesses to provide them with what they need in terms of products and services is slowly changing how the world views businesses and how they run it.
Usually, what it took in the past to run a successful business is to be good at what you do or have a good product to sell and to market it through radio, newspaper and other mediums to get people to patronize your goods or your services. These days, running a business online can mean so many things and can reach so many people that having a business up and running can actually be done in a matter of hours even when you do not have your own product to sell.
You can have a business online and make money from home by selling other peoples products and receive a commission from each sale. You can also have a business online by selling your skills and expertise like writing, graphic art, and programming to people around the globe. You can sell expertise online to other businesses with outsourcing businesses and joint ventures. You can make a lot of money from this opportunity without having to get out of your pajamas or setting foot outside your home.
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<title>Internet and Business Online – The Value Added Objective</title>
<link>https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-business-online-the-value-added-objective/</link>
<comments>https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-business-online-the-value-added-objective/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 11 Dec 2022 17:29:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Link Popularity]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[List Building]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Paid Surveys]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Podcasting]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[PPC Advertising]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[PPC Publishing]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Product Creation]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Product Launching]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Site Promotion]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Social Bookmarking]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://emuzznd.info/?p=16</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Brick and mortar businesses are learning that the Internet is a powerful ally in perpetuating business. Certainly most online buyers understand that many traditional stores also supply the ability to purchase online. In fact many stores will make the online … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/internet-and-business-online-the-value-added-objective/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Brick and mortar businesses are learning that the Internet is a powerful ally in perpetuating business.
Certainly most online buyers understand that many traditional stores also supply the ability to purchase online. In fact many stores will make the online store more inviting by either making purchases available with free shipping to the nearest store or by making certain items available only online. At least one retailer allows customers to select a variety of free products to try and then make them easily available in their retail outlets for those who connect with the product.
While this scenario is played out everyday online there is another form of connection between traditional business and the online environment.
Webkins, a company selling stuffed animals in traditional stores, has tapped into an incredible selling tool by creating an online environment for the owner of the stuffed animal. In essence when you give the gift of this stuffed animal toy the recipient also received a free one-year membership in this highly desired online destination.
Other companies have followed suit including the popular Build-A-Bear chain who debuted a beta version of their online community in 2007. Children who visit the brick and mortar storefront to build an animal are then able to connect with this exclusive online community for safe interaction as well as fun and learning.
These are examples of how already successful companies are expanding their desirability by making it possible for the purchase to have benefits that last long after the sale has been concluded.
Businesses are beginning to catch a glimpse that even a more direct hands on purchase can be enhanced with the premium of an online benefit.
Coffee shops and retail outlets invite customers to fill out an exclusive online survey that may include discounts, free services, free products or the potential for a cash award. This enables them to enhance list building opportunities and alert customers to their own online presence.
If this concept is gaining such a profound following in traditional retail why isn’t it being done more in online stores? The truth is online retailers pioneered the idea with free memberships with a purchase that allowed them to an online community forum or an ebook download. Customers might be given the opportunity to select a free product from the online store or choose from steep discounts on other merchandise.
Customers learned to look for value added features – online. Now that brick and mortar stores are making it possible for their customers to gain specific benefits online the buying public has come to look for businesses (on and off line) that can deliver a value added punch.
The value of the Internet cannot be ignored. This is a tool that enables business, but it also allows traditional business to extend a variety of benefits to new and existing customers.
By finding ways to appeal to a connected customer you can find greater opportunities to advance your business objectives while giving the customer more than a product and nothing less than your best.
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<title>Significant Information About Internet and Business Online</title>
<link>https://emuzznd.info/significant-information-about-internet-and-business-online/</link>
<comments>https://emuzznd.info/significant-information-about-internet-and-business-online/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 11 Nov 2022 17:29:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Auctions]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Audio Streaming]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Autoresponders]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Banner Advertising]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Domain Names]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[E-Books]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Ecommerce]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Email Marketing]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Forums]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Internet and Businesses]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[OnlineAffiliate]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Revenue]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://emuzznd.info/?p=15</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The internet and business online has produced a new breed of entrepreneurs who spend a few hours a day on a computer and in return earn a high percentage in commissions. Of course, setting up an online company can take … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/significant-information-about-internet-and-business-online/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[The internet and business online has produced a new breed of entrepreneurs who spend a few hours a day on a computer and in return earn a high percentage in commissions. Of course, setting up an online company can take some time but after this operation has been completed the whole process could run on automatic pilot enabling maximum profits for minimum input.
Most businesses encounter problems when overheads spiral out of control but by taking advantage of the internet and business online the only costs incurred are that of having a website designed by a professional and the ongoing cost of hosting and maintaining a high search engine ranking. Getting your website noticed worldwide can be done in a great number of ways some of which could involve costs but all of this can be easily achieved.
However, there are a number of guidelines that should be adhered to, to ensure the success of an online company. The main one is keeping Google happy by complying with their terms and conditions;falling foul of Google could be a disaster for anybody just starting out and you could even experience being banished from the net and unable to trade. For any potential entrepreneur who wishes to promote an internet business online it must be remembered that it is all about effort and determination. The different ways to get your website noticed and the upgrading and tweaking of your website to keep pace with the ever changing trends online. The more effort that a person puts into their online company the better the returns.
We are part of a lazy society and the easier it is for a customer to make a purchase the happier they will be in many cases it could be regardless of cost. So promote, upgrade and keep Google satisfied, if it takes some time before results become evident patience is the answer. Becoming part of what has become an internet explosion and promoting the internet and business online could see you in an extremely favorable position whereby you could leave the boring, mundane job you have despised for so long and your dream could become a reality. There can be no better way to make a living than making use of the internet and promote a business online working the hours that suit with no boss hounding you to work faster. Your pace, your time and your income. What could be better than running your own company with hardly any outlay?
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<title>The Internet And Business Online: How Profitable Can This Get?</title>
<link>https://emuzznd.info/the-internet-and-business-online-how-profitable-can-this-get/</link>
<comments>https://emuzznd.info/the-internet-and-business-online-how-profitable-can-this-get/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 Oct 2022 17:29:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Internet And Business]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Online]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Profitable]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://emuzznd.info/?p=17</guid>
<description><![CDATA[If you are operating and managing a business, it’s natural that you ensure that you are earning profits. If you don’t have profits, it means one thing – by tomorrow you will bid your business goodbye. This could be applicable … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/the-internet-and-business-online-how-profitable-can-this-get/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[If you are operating and managing a business, it’s natural that you ensure that you are earning profits. If you don’t have profits, it means one thing – by tomorrow you will bid your business goodbye. This could be applicable to online business too. In this piece, you will be taken into the world of the Internet and business online where making profits can be done easily if you know the rules.
With profit as your ultimate goal in founding an online business, commitment is the key to achieve this. But, you have to know some techniques and methods that you could apply so that you can attain this goal in no time. For online entrepreneurs who plan to earn money while offering relevant information on various topics for free, there are still ways of earning money.
Firstly, you can sell advertising space on your website. To get the interest of advertisers, you have to make sure that the topics of your site are those that are also interesting to Internet users because advertisers believe that many visitors to the site can increase their chances of getting noticed.
Secondly, you can sell items on your website as a sideline for your real business. You can sell mugs, T-shirts and other items that bear your site’s logo. This auxiliary line could also help increase your profit.
Lastly, some visitors to the site may decide to give you money even though you don’t ask for it. Don’t refuse the donation because it can add up to your income and it’s their way of showing their appreciation for offering them the right information that they need. But, you should not rely on this because your income is quite uncertain with this approach.
Meanwhile, if your business is selling specific items online, you can promote what you are selling by submitting articles containing the right keywords so that Internet users will be able to be led to your website and they may become interested to try and buy what you offer. This way, all of the opportunities offered by the Internet and business online, which include profits and further expansion, will be utilized to the fullest.
The advent of new technologies paved the way for the establishment of different forms of businesses. The Internet and business online can be your ticket to success, especially if you will work hard and will focus on what your business will be doing two to three years from now. If this is your long-term goal, then you are sure that you will be earning profits because your business thrives. Confidence and guts could also play important roles in the success of a business.
Aside from generating profits, another factor that you should be sure of is your enjoyment of what you are doing. As an entrepreneur, you need to know whether you will be happy with the chosen field of your business enterprise.
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<title>Building a Shared Vision: Developing and Sustaining Media Education Partnerships in the Middle East</title>
<link>https://emuzznd.info/building-a-shared-vision-developing-and-sustaining-media-education-partnerships-in-the-middle-east/</link>
<comments>https://emuzznd.info/building-a-shared-vision-developing-and-sustaining-media-education-partnerships-in-the-middle-east/#comments</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 14 May 2022 06:55:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dayat</dc:creator>
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<category><![CDATA[Building a Shared]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[This article explores how media education partnerships will help institutions in the MENA and the U.S. provide culturally-appropriate education to their students, and the positive impact of each partnerships’ faculty and students being exposed to media, journalism and communication students … <a href="https://emuzznd.info/building-a-shared-vision-developing-and-sustaining-media-education-partnerships-in-the-middle-east/">Continue reading →</a>]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[This article explores how media education partnerships will help institutions in the MENA and the U.S. provide culturally-appropriate education to their students, and the positive impact of each partnerships’ faculty and students being exposed to media, journalism and communication students and practitioners from other cultures and nations.
Often the most fleeting contact with international visitors can have a far-reaching and unforeseen impact. Drawing from the authors’ media teaching,Guest Posting research, and practice in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the article addresses the inspiring and enriching cultural impact of media education partnerships between the U.S. and the MENA. The article outlines keys to creating and sustaining successful media, journalism and communication university partnerships, reporting specifically on an international media education collaboration in progress between l’Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information (IPSI), University of Manouba, Tunis and Bowling Green State University. The article also explores how media education partnerships will help institutions in the MENA and the U.S. provide culturally-appropriate education to their students, and the positive impact of each partnerships’ faculty and students being exposed to media, journalism and communication students and practitioners from other cultures and nations. It gives evidence as to how media education partnerships can not only develop professional standards in media, but also build capacity to strengthen democratic practices, build civil society, increase critical thinking and awareness, minimize and manage conflicts, fight negative stereotypes that often emerge as a reaction to governmental and corporate media discourses.
An increased attention to the growth of civil society in the Middle East and North Africa (see, for instance, Amin & Gher, 2000; Bellin, 1995; Borowiec, 1998; Brand, 1998; Darwish, 2003) reveals that civic discourse functions best where there is free access to information and where unhindered discussions allow citizens to examine all sides of civic issues. Because information and communication technology (ICT), media, and journalism are some of the most important sites for civic debate, they are essential partners in any nation’s efforts towards enhancing civil society. As nations in the Middle East and North Africa MENA continue to enhance civil society, it is imperative that their journalists and media and communication professionals have the professional training and dedication to maintain the highest codes of conduct and practice that will make them integral components in the process of building civil society.
At present, however, media critics have shown that the professional activity of journalists in MENA countries is still very vulnerable (Amin, 2002, p. 125). As an expected consequence, MENA education programs in the communication discipline, most notably in news media, journalism, telecommunications and media technologies, have tended to support powerful institutions and individuals, rather than civic discourse and the voices of students as citizens (Amin, 2002; Rugh, 2004; Lowstedt, 2004). For example, investigation on media systems in eighteen nations in the MENA (Rugh, 2004) revealed that radio and television in all these countries, excepting Lebanon, are still subordinated to powerful institutions. There have been several recent international summits acknowledging these concerns. For example, the 2004 conference of the Institute of Professional Journalists in Beirut on “Media Ethics and Journalism in the Arab World: Theory, Practice and Challenges Ahead”, had as one of its main themes the pressures on Arab media and journalists from local governments and other powerful players inside the Arab world. During the Arab International Media Forum held at Doha, in March 2005, workshop discussions underlined that the Arab media’s independence have yet to be established within countries where the media have been strictly controlled. And, perhaps the most important summit thus far this millennium, the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (UN WSIS), held in Tunis, November 2005, addressed the immense challenges of the digital divide and other concerns in the MENA.
Investigating educational partnerships in the MENA
As evidenced by summits on Arab, MENA and related global media, there is an emergent body of research on MENA media (see, for instance, Amin, 2002; Cassara & Lengel, 2004; Darwish, 2003; George & Souvitz, 2003; Lowstedt, 2004) and of research on the potential for media technologies generally and, specifically, in efforts to democratize the region (see for instance, Alterman, 1998; Dunn, 2000; Hamada, 2003; Isis International, 2003; Lengel, 2002a; Lengel, 2002b; Lengel, 2004; Lengel, Ben Hamza, Cassara, & El Bour, 2005). However, there is very little research focusing on the benefits and challenges of media education partnerships between nations in the MENA and those outside it. A broad-scale evaluation of the current situation of MENA media education is needed to fully assess the financial, pedagogical and attitudinal constraints found across the region. Additionally, what is needed is an exploration of how cooperation and collaboration, partnerships between the MENA and other regions to develop educational partnerships which can enhance media education in the region, through shared online resources, shared experience, mutual commitment to MENA media students’ academic and professional development, and positive interaction between those within and outside the region.
This article addresses such research needs by investigating the potential for partnerships in the MENA. It presents key components for creating and sustaining successful university partnerships in media, journalism, and communication. It also explores how media education partnerships can help universities within and outside the MENA to provide culturally-appropriate education and training to their media, journalism, telecommunications, new media, and communication students, develop innovative online and distance learning initiatives, cultivate a community of practice, and foster a positive impact of each partnerships’ faculty and students being exposed to those media instructors, researchers, students, and practitioners from other cultures and nations. The article reports specifically on a media partnership in progress between l’Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information (IPSI) at the University of Manouba in Tunis, Tunisia and Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, USA. It focuses on the experiences of the faculty co-directing the partnership in media, journalism and international communication, particularly the process of developing and sustaining the partnership. The article reflects on the future vision of media education in the MENA, particularly the challenges and the future of investment in the media education by governments, educational institutions, and civil society and media organizations within and outside the region. Finally, it analyzes how media education partnerships can not only develop professional standards in media, but also build capacity to strengthen democratic practices, build civil society, increase critical thinking and awareness, minimize and manage conflicts, fight negative stereotypes that emerge as a result of the often inattentive, insensitive and inaccurate nature of governmental and corporate media discourses.
Partnerships and civil society building
Citizens, scholars, practitioners and civil society organizations argue much needs to be done to democratize media, journalism and unrestricted access to information and communication technology in the MENA (see Camau & Geisser, 2003; Cassara & Lengel, 2004; Chouikha, 2002; Newsom & Lengel, 2003; Tetreault, 2000). An important place to begin this transformation is to foster educational collaboration within and outside the MENA that recognizes the role that a free and independent media plays in transition to building democracy and which understands that journalists can serve as models of participants in democratic processes.
As MENA nations engage in building civil society, it will be critical that journalists in the region have not only the skills they need to do their work well, but also the insights necessary to negotiate the challenges posed by democratization. These insights are enhanced by international exchange. The ever-growing presence of information and communication technology (ICT) and the additional resources and challenges that ICT offers journalists and citizens alike create even more opportunities for democratic dialogue and international exchange (Eickelman & Anderson, 1999).
Because democratic dialogue is a hallmark of civil societies, exchange and dialogue between two international partners is at the heart of the international collaborative program “Capacity Building for a Democratic Press: A Sustainable Partnership to Develop Media and Journalism Curricula in Tunisia.” The program, which was launched in 2004 with a two-year funding commitment from the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI),1 highlights a hands-on practicum approach in which l’Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information, University of Manouba, Tunis students benefit from practical professional journalism skills through internships with U.S. and MENA media organizations and engage in interactive and practical training in media and journalistic production and practice. This media educational partnership is creating sustainable core curriculum additions at the Tunisian partnership university including new program specializations in Women, Media and Democracy, as well as in Journalism and Human Rights. It is important to note that IPSI is the only press institute or program of study in Tunisia and, arguably, the only one in North Africa.
The partnership combines in-person and online contact between IPSI and BGSU faculty and the students with the cultural knowledge and both traditional university learning environments on the two campuses, and online through Blackboard, the BGSU online course delivery program. The project serves both undergraduate and graduate students at both partnership universities, enhances faculty instruction and online and face-to-face curriculum development, and creates sustainable and wide-reaching partnerships between academic institutions, civil society and NGOs, the private sector, and policy makers.
Developing a community of practice: Keys to successful media education partnerships
The most successful partnerships cooperate and collaborate as a community of practice. What brings members of a community of practice together is a shared vision and goals, and a passion for mutual dialogue (Preston & Lengel, 2004). Respect for human worth and dignity, individual voices, and wrestling with complex social issues are characteristics of democratic environments (Kubow & Fossum, 2003; Kubow & Kinney, 2000; Kubow, 1999).
Communities of practice are emerging as important bases for creating, sharing, and applying knowledge. These communities share ideas and innovations, collaborating across traditional hierarchical structures and geophysical boundaries. Part of the mission of the partnership discussed in this article is to maintain a sustainable community of practice in the area of media, journalism, communication and ICT. In this partnership a diverse and committed group of media, journalism, communication technology, comparative/international education and democratic education researchers, teachers, practitioners and students are engaging in the examination and creation of democratic media and online civic discourse. Through face-to-face meetings, online learning, several workshops in both the US and Tunisia, and participation in and reporting on the UN World Summit on the Information Society, the community of practice supports the concepts surrounding the development of a free and independent media and will internationalize and professionalize media institutions in the U.S. and Tunisia, and, more broadly across the MENA.
The partnership transcends traditional university course work and practice to become an actual community, sustainable beyond the 24-month schedule of grant-supported activities. Because of the commitment of the participating institutions, the community will sustain and grow through further curriculum development, research and related activities involving additional partners throughout the MENA. This will occur mainly due to the transformative nature of the interaction. Personal, direct contact with citizens from other culture and nations can break down stereotypical imagery and ideas, which often emerge the result of government and mainstream, corporate media discourses. The direct interaction, intensive collaboration and co-learning, and respectful dialogue of partnerships can create a level of compassionate interaction between the partnership participants who create the community of practice.
1) Commitment of institutions involved in the media partnership
Communities of practice cannot be created or sustained without commitment. Outlined hereafter are six keys to creating and sustaining successful online university education and training partnerships: 1) Commitment of partnership institutions; 2) Commitment and expertise of personnel; 3) Commitment to providing access to ICT and other facilities and resources to students and faculty at both partner institutions; 4) Commitment to engaging with professional media, journalism and civil society organizations; 5) Commitment to program development and enhancement; and 6) Commitment to sustainability.
First and foremost, partnerships can only be created and sustained if there is commitment on the parts of both participating institutions. In the case of the partnership described in this paper, several strong reasons attest to the importance of choice of university in a collaborative partnership. First, the Institut de Presse et des Sciences de l’Information (IPSI) at the University of Manouba, Tunisia is the only media and journalism university institute in the nation (MERST, 2002). Second, faculty and administration at IPSI are committed to the partnership at all levels. They have welcomed both face-to-face (F2F) and online participation between students and faculty and between students and students at both universities. Institutional commitment has also resulted in internal and external support for the program. While the Middle East Partnership Initiative, a U.S. State Department program, as provided a highly competitive grant of $100,000 US (See Appendix 2) A significant cost-share (220%, or $220,000) in support of the partnership program has been provided primarily by BGSU, with additional support from civil society and private sector partners. In adherence to the university’s commitment to international education and exchange, several BGSU units have articulated their support of the program. The University Provost, the Executive Vice President, and Deans of three different Colleges have expressed their commitment.
2) Commitment and expertise of personnel
Along with commitment at the institutional level, primarily by directors and key leadership of each institution, a second key to successful partnerships is the commitment and expertise of the faculty who will develop, implement, and sustain the partnership program. The IPSI-BGSU partnership, for example, emerged from the long-standing relationships originally developed by U.S. Partnership Co-Director when she was a Fulbright Researcher in women and media in Tunisia, 1993-1994.2 Ten years after her first in-country work in Tunisia, issues surrounding media, democracy and the information society remain a challenge for that nation and elsewhere in the MENA. Thus, the rationale for the partnership is that there is a great deal of mutual benefit of international educational exchange, of opportunities to learn first-hand about diverse practices in media and journalism from both partner institutions’ faculty and students, and to work together toward enhancing civil society in the MENA and abroad.
The partnership team members are widely published and nationally and internationally recognized. The partnership co-directors, coordinators and key administrators have each directed or co-directed international educational programs in China, Croatia, France, Great Britain, Austria, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the MENA. Finally, partnership co-directors’ expertise in women and the media, particularly in the MENA (see Azouz, 2005; Azouz, 1994; Lengel, 1998; Lengel, 2000; Lengel, 2002; Newsom & Lengel, 2003) was crucial to the success of the “Women, Media and Democracy” workshop, detailed below.
3. Commitment to providing access to resources
A third key to successful partnerships is the commitment to providing access to ICT and other facilities and resources to students and faculty at both partner institutions. IPSI students are exposed to the digital audiovisual equipment and the strong web development curriculum and tools available at the Institute. Of particular importance to the partnership, ISPI students have access to 150 computers with Internet access, which affords the opportunity to engage in the distance education component of the program with the U.S. Partner institution. BGSU faculty and students are benefitting by learning from the extensive international teaching, research, and media and journalism production experience of the IPSI faculty and administration. Also, there are several key strengths of the U.S. Partner for the MEPI exchange. The first strength is the cutting-edge journalism, multimedia, computing and production facilities housed in the BGSU School of Communication Studies, which houses the Departments of Journalism, Interpersonal Communication and Telecommunications. Further, as an Internet 2 campus, Bowling Green State University has an advanced technological infrastructure that fully supports all of the online and telecommunications activities cited within the programs of this grant. BGSU’s IDEAL unit (Interactive Distance Education for All Learners) oversees the development and implementation of distance (i.e., web-based) course work and communication on campus. Additionally, the University is part of the larger OhioLink library system, which allows MENA faculty and students participating in the partnership to access materials and holdings at all of the state universities and many of many of the private colleges and universities in Ohio, and also provides links to that other U.S. library systems. Finally, additional technology services are being provided by WBGU-TV PBS and the US Embassy in Tunis which are both providing digital videoconferencing services for the quarterly meetings between the two universities.
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