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Your opinion about Last.fm

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Internet can save us!

Nowadays, the development of internet came up to a point where it represents a true solution to many problems in the world. Human society is concerned by problems of war, ethics, religion, racism, terrorism, criminalty, violence, or anger, etc…which often appear in a cyclic way.

One day they disappear, one day they resurface, one day we think they are insolvent because they take part of human nature, another day we think it’s easy to stop them, “we just have to use a bit of imagination”, etc…

The question is : Does something exist in this world that could stop its problems and solve them ?

Internet is maybe the answer. Is a “virtual” world capable of solving real problems ? Some people think so.

“One laptop per child in the world” : it is not a joke, but the objective (and the name) of an american association based in Delaware in the United States. This association promotes laptops for 100 dollars, and this projest has been developped by engineers and teachers coming from MediaLab, a department of the Massachussets Institute of Technology. When we visit its website (laptop.org), we can see the catch phrase of the project : “Give a laptop. Get a laptop. Change the world”.

The main idea on which this project has been built is that Internet can provide all the knowledge an individual need. Indeed, internet can be seen as an efficient way to bring access to information and education to people who live in poor or developping countries, or who have to face problems of this type.

Otherwise, it is true that many problems developped in the world are the result of a tremendous lack of education and information among people in certain parts of the globe. I particularly think about terrorism and wars for example. We can think that if people are more educated, more aware of what happens in the world (not only in their village) everyday, violence should calm down (and maybe disappear one day ?). It is quiete idealistic, but it maybe works.

How to use internet in our future…

When internet was born, in the seventies, nobody could have imagined that several decades later, it would play such a role and take such a place in the world, and in western societies in particular.

The evolution process of internet has been so quick and impressive that it allows us to imagine what will be the future of internet and how we’ll be supposed to use it. Currently we are not able to know exactly what it will look like, it’s all about speculation, but we can try to draw a brief description of the use of internet when we’ll be older.

Personally, I think my use of internet will increase in the same time that we all will be connected, “plugged” into it 24/7. Indeed, today the digital divide remains a reality, but will it exist in the future ? I think internet will reach the entire world. So I guess using internet in the future will mean above all, “staying connected”.

It will also mean that internet will play a greater role at work. Employees, if it’s not already the case, will be obliged to use it daily. Maybe it will be possible to stay at home and to work in your room, because all will be done by using internet : conferences, negociations, commercial appointments, etc…

Moreover, there are several of our current behaviours which will change and be concerned by internet in the future. I don’t exactly know which behaviours, but I guess the opportunities internet can provide are numerous and will extand. Who could imagine two decades ago the “free global phone” (Skype), the “webmobile”, the e-commerce, the e-book, etc…? Today, we can already organize our entire life around internet : doing shopping, voting, working, , etc…So in my future, I guess internet will take a greater place in my life.

Actually, I think my future use of internet will look like a sort of true addiction : I guess I will not be alone to be “addicted” to it, because there are many opportunities for internet to become the center of our lives, the new and main way we will find to link people together.

Here is an interesting article about the future of internet, if you wonder what internet will be in 2020…

To finish this article, I suggest you to watch this video, which proposes a standpoint about the future of internet :

How to use internet at work ?

Using internet at work these days is a common fact. Many employees of companies use it during working hours. Indeed, it offers many tools that can make work easier.

Who refuses to have an e-mail adress for example ? The coming and the generalization of mailbox as a way to simplify, accelerate and improve relationships between employees and outside environment has turn each employees into little “tech-addicts”. Everybody is obliged to use internet at work, to send files, to receive messages of clients, colleagues, bosses, to contact new people, etc…

But the ways you can use it are numerous. In many companies, internet is used in order to get informations about their competitors. Strategic watch is more and more important for them. Internet permits companies to stay connected each other and to be informed about the evolution of the competition.

Consequently, internet can be seen as a very efficent tool. But it is not always the case. Indeed, the use of internet can represent a true hurdle to work .

Many companies have developped policies on the use of internet during working hours, because some employees use it to do their online shopping, check and send personal e-mails, play online games, read newspapers, organize their next travel, etc…According to a survey published online, the main part of employees use internet during office hours everyday for at least thirty minutes. And this is a real problem for companies, because employees are not getting paid to do their job, but to spend hours on internet.

Moreover, some companies entirely prohibit internet use because of the lack of concentration it involves among employees.

I know you want further informations about this topic. Thanks to my generosity, you’ll find there a complete article dealing with the issues raised by the use of internet at work.

How to use internet to find a job?

Nowadays Internet offers great opportunities for those who want to organize their lives using it. Everybody can now buy products online, find girl/boyfriend on it (with specialized websites such as Meetic or Rezo-G), improve its knowledge, etc…very easily.

But what is more interesting with internet is that we can use it to find a job. A lot of websites publish job and internship ads. They form a sort of platform for job seekers. You can join these sites, deliver your name, your situation and your mail adress to be informed of last situation vacant. Each time a job ad corresponds to your situation, a mail is sent by the website to inform you. It is a very easy way to find a job using internet.

Other websites propose to create your CV online by offering a particular space to you. There, many means are available to you to make your CV more appealing for recruiters. Here are some websites that can be useful : www.cv.com, www.moncv.com, www.doyoubuzz.com
But the real added value of these websites is that they allow you to publish your CV online, so it can be at recruiters’ disposal and you can be contacted by them anytime.

But there are other ways, more innovative, to find a job with internet. Indeed, recruitments are now possible on Second Life for example.

This virtual world proposes a real interface for obtaining an interview. Many companies have developped a human ressource’s strategy based on the use of Second Life as a way to encounter candidates before granting them (or not) a “face-to-face” interview. French companies, such as L’Oréal or BNP-Paribas have created avatars on Second Life that are supposed to represent job recruiters. You, or your avatar if you prefer, can be interviewed about your motivation and the reasons why you absolutely want to join a company without having to get out of your house.

But this type of recruitment looks like “speed-recruiting” : the goal is above all to make a first selection, to check profiles of candidates and therefore to make recruitment process easier. In other words, applying for a job on Second Life does’nt mean that you will actually get a real job.

Moreover many agencies specialized in the field of virtual recruitment have been created. Neo-job meeting is one of these agencies, which often organizes recruiting events on Second Life. these events permit to dial with recruiters in private interviews, to get informations about companies, etc…

10 ways to make money on internet…

Internet provides a lot of opportunities to make money. For all of those who aspire to make ends meet or even to earn a living without having to get out of home, Internet IS the solution.
There are several ways to make it possible : Let’s discover them :

First of all, we can all make money on internet personally :

– By using e-commerce websites such as www.ebay.com or www.amazon.com : these sites permit us to become a seller of second-hand products and to sell them directly to other users         

– By sending personal documents on document sharing platforms like www.oboulo.com for example : it allows us to become a real editor and to get a lot of money if our document is often visited by users and interests the community.

– By writing contents on websites : a lot of sites propose to people that are fond of writing (without being experimented journalists) to participate to the publication of some articles. Website owners are very interested in this because it permits them not to pay too much for our participation (if we’re not professionals) and to get pretty good informations on their site.

– By selling photos online : It’s now easier than ever to earn extra money from our photos or images by selling them online via sites such as Fotolia or Dreamstime for example.

Then, making money online is also the objective of many companies :

– By offering contents (movies, music, images, articles, etc…) or services  having a price (!), such as those permitting to improve the organization of companies, or proposing solutions to business problems.

– By providing cyber-space to advertisers in order to fill it with advertising and to benefit the money. The most famous way to do it is surely Adsense. It is an advertisement application offered by Google in order to enable website owners to find advertisements adapted to the content of the site and its public. This system generate revenue each time an internet user click on these ads.

– By extending the brand online and creating an « official » website that offers special services. For example, many brands of newspapers are now present online because they have understood the importance of new « e-economy » to make money and, above all, to develop loyalty among consumers. Indeed, charged services proposed online can permit brands to make money in an easy way, provided that they offer interesting and added-value contents, such as (in the case of newspapers) access to the archives, specialized newsletters, multimedia contents (video or audio), thematic dossiers and analysis, etc…The website of Le Monde is a good illustration of this trend.

It is also possible to make money for a social cause or for fundraising :

– By offering a complete range of donation services online for example. Let’s take the example of FundraiseOnline, a platform that provides users a personal fundraising page, where they can make donations to charities they’ve decided to support. These types of websites are more and more growing. In France, Aiderdonner.com ( I have already written a post about it) works on the same idea : gathering money to back social causes.

Identity theft

I have already written an article about criminal activities on the internet and evoked identity theft as a growing crime online.

Basically, this term refers to a fraud which implies stealing informations concerning the identity of a person (date of birth, adress, credit card code, social security number, etc…) in order to get money or informations.

According to my research on internet, I’ve found that identity theft is often used for criminal activities such as database espionage or bank fraud.

Identity theft is a very widespread crime on the internet, because it is very easy to do. Everybody can be tracked every minute of the day whenever they use their credit cards, cell phones, or when they go through digital identification systems (digital signature).

The consequence of identity theft can be dramatic for the person whose identity has been stolen. Indeed this person can be held responsible for criminal’s activity in which she was’nt involved at all and be locked in prison for the rest of her life if she is not able to proof she’s not guilty.

Here is a short video of Youtube about identity theft :

Cyber addiction

It is commonly admitted that Internet has created generations of « loners » among the youth.
Many people are now known as “cyber-addicted”. What does this term mean ?
Cyber-addiction can be defined as a phenomenon concerning persons who often feel an overwhelming compulsion to surf the net, chat with “friends” they don’t even know the name or play games on line.

For these people, computer represents both a friend and a family, and is sometimes the only link they have to society. In a word, computer is their whole life. “Drug” is not a word reserved to “real life” insomuch as internet can lead to overuses that cause true addictions implying mental or even physical damages on users.

Today, millions internet users have a dependency that can be considered as dangerous as alcoholism for example.

Addicted people are supposed to be emotionally fragile, spend hours and hours plugged into internet and confined in their bedrooms, and have difficulties to communicate with friends or family in real life. They are lonely, anxious and pretty introverted : they are afraid of society.

Actually, internet, while very useful and fascinating, represents a great danger for some people. We should be careful to this new drift, which tends to become an everyday fact.

For further informations about this topic, read this document on www.cqld.ca

Violence on the internet

Violence in the internet is a common notion. While contents available are virtual, the violence they contain is at least very real and can cause certain mental damages.

Violence offered by the internet can be characterized by violent or gore scenes available on high-success sites like www.gorezone.co.uk for example, by sexual violence on porno sites, by verbal violence too (a lot of music and lyrics available online are standing up for a sort of violence). On internet, violence has become a feature of life.
It is an everyday fact and kids are the first victims of this violence. They are exposed to many violent movies, clips, musics, or video games available free. It is very easy for a child to download cartoons like those named “Happy tree friends”, or even video games in which violence plays the first role, to get hot music.                   

One of the other aspects of violence on the internet is the presence of sites stirring up racial hatred and upholding racial theories. These sites try to appeal children by proposing racist cartoons, image, etc…

To make my remarks clearer, I suggest you to watch this short video available on Youtube :