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Lesson 3
The World Wide Web
What is the Web?
The World Wide Web (WWW)—usually called the Web for short—is a global
collection of different websites or resources that you can access on the Internet.
These resources may be accessed using a type of application called a web
browser which displays websites and web applications.
The Internet and the Web are not the same but they are related. We can
think of the Internet as a means to access the World Wide Web. World Wide Web
is just one of the services that you can access over the Internet.
URLs and the address bar
Each website has a unique address called a URL (Uniform Resource
Locator). It's like a home address that tells your browser where to go on the
Internet.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a way of identifying the location of a
resource on the internet. We use URL to open not just websites but also other
resources such as videos, music and more.
Example:
https://www.dmmmsu.edu.ph/2019/09/09/advisory/
The www.dmmmsu.edu.ph part of the URL is called a domain name. A
domain name is the name of the website. We have learned that computers use
IP addresses, which are a series of numbers. To access a website, we need to
know (or memorize) the IP address of the website. However, it is difficult for
humans to remember series of numbers. Imagine this, you take all the phone
numbers of your classmates and memorize them so that you can contact them
when you need to. That would be difficult, right? So, what we do is save them in
our phonebook and associate those numbers with their names. Instead of
memorizing numbers, we just need to remember the names of our classmates
and access them on the phonebook. That is how the domain name works. For
example, 142.250.199.78 is the IP address of the Google website as of the time
of the writing of this lesson. Without domain name (www.google.com) you need
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to memorize the IP address to visit that website. You may try typing the IP
address in your browser instead of www.google.com.
Uses of the Internet and the World Wide Web
There are a lot of things you can do online. With the Internet, it is possible
to quickly find information, communicate with people around the world, manage
your finances, shop from home, listen to music, watch videos, and much more in
the comfort of your home or anywhere there is an access to Internet. Let’s look
at some of the common things we can do online.
Finding information online
The most common use of the Internet, of course as a student, is finding
information online. Who do we turn to when we don’t know the answer? The
Internet. Specifically, Google, right?
Google is one of those services that the world wide web delivers. Google
is called a search engine. If you need an answer for something, probably this is
your first go-to for finding answers.
There are a lot of information in the world wide web and search engines
are apps or services that allows you to search for specific information easier
online. All you have to do is type one or more keywords, and the search engine
will look for relevant websites. For example, you are looking for a place where
you can spend your vacation. You could use a search engine to find places where
people have gone, see their reviews, and book for accommodations.
There are many different search engines you can use, but some of the
most popular include Google, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo and Bing.
Email
Short for electronic mail, email is a way to send and receive
messages across the Internet. Almost everyone who uses the
Internet has their own email account, usually called an email
address. This is because you'll need an email address to do just
about anything online, from online banking to creating a
Facebook account. Email address is your identity in the World
Wide Web. When you sign up on a website or other services,
normally, they would ask for your email not only as a contact
information but as your identity in that service or website.
Email addresses are in a username@domainname form. For example,
[email protected]. There are a lot of email service providers out there
and probably the most popular are Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
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Social networking
Social Networking Sites (SNS) are another way
to connect and share with your family and
friends online. We can use it to share pictures,
videos, thoughts, life events, and more.
Facebook is the world's largest social
networking site, with more than 1 billion users
worldwide and the most popular social
networking site in the Philippines. Other social
networking sites out there are Pinterest,
Twitter, Instagram, and many more.
Chat and instant messaging
Chat and instant messaging (IM) are messages sent and read in real time. This
means that both people who are online allows them to send and respond
messages quicker. In contrast, emails won't be seen until recipients check their
inboxes. Examples are Facebook Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Hangouts,
WeChat and more.
Online media
There are websites that allows you to watch videos, listen to music and play
games. Examples are video streaming sites such as YouTube and Vimeo; gaming
sites; audio or music streaming; online radio and other web apps that deliver
entertainment.
Blogs
A blog (shortening of “web log”) is an online journal or informational website
where a writer or even a group of writers share their views on an individual
subject. With blogs, you can write
just about anything that you want
to write. Depending on the
purpose, some blogs are created to
provide news and critics to current
issues, to make tutorials, write
about daily experiences and much
more. Some bloggers have made
this their fulltime job by earning
revenues from promoting products
and services online. To put up your
own blog, there are free websites
you can use to create your own blogs. Some of the popular ones are,
blogger.com, wordpress.com, and wix.com.
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Sometimes blog is created in a video format called vlog. Vlog derives from “video
blog” or “video log” and refers to a type of blog where the contents are in video
format. It is one of the popular ways of sharing information and ideas online.
Some vloggers have turned into celebrities through vlogging. Some of the popular
sites where you can upload your vlogs are YouTube and Facebook.
Ecommerce
Ecommerce, short for Electronic commerce, pertains to the use of internet in
buying and selling of products and services online. Many businesses have resorted
to ecommerce as a platform in delivering their products or services due to the
high number of potential customers online. Examples of these are Lazada,
Shopee, Zalora, or Facebook Market.
Everyday tasks
With the vast amount of services that the World Wide Web provides, we
now use the world wide web for everyday tasks. The Internet’s role has become
significant over the last years and continues to improve to provide enhancement
to our daily tasks. There are a lot more than what is mentioned in this module
that the internet can offer. Explore the world wide web and what it offers,
because we may never know, one day it is unavoidable to use the Internet in
everything you do.
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