About the internet
The definition of the Internet is very simple – the Internet is a medium (intermediary, carrier). In short, it is the CONTENT – everything offered is at your disposal once you connect your computer to the net (it does not matter whether it is a fixed line, via a telephone or in some other way). This presentation and information dissemination takes place in a very simple form – just by clicking, which is the easiest performance there can be, expecting from the user a positive response to given information.
How did it originate?
In the 60s, the American army was trying to find a way in which the army computers, located all over the USA, could communicate, even when part of the net is out of order. The RAND Corporation technicians came up with a unique solution – creating a net without a central network junction. If any of the lines gets damaged, the information will be immediately passed onto the recipient via another way. „Are you receiving this?“ – the first sentence sent from the University of California in Los Angeles in August 1969 via a net made up of four junctions: UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. That’s how Arpanet was created.
Gradually, other institutions started to make use of the Internet, mainly universities. At that time, the Internet was a wholly non-commercial matter. Its building was supported by the American army and various government agencies. Businessmen were not interested in it because they did not see how it could be used.
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee thought of a new way of communication (originally for the internal needs of CERN laboratories where he worked at the time). Hypertextual documents. Texts which include references to other texts which can be placed in another computer, be it at the other end of the world. Thanks to a simple and intuitive control, this way of communication soon spread outside CERN and we know it today as the World Wide Web. It was not long before images were attached to the texts. The documents were more natural and it allowed better communication. It is precisely the existence of www along with the massive spread of PCs that attracted millions of new users to the Internet. The Internet then became interesting for the businessman as well. The commercial utilisation of the Internet dates from 1992 when the National Science Foundation, until then the administrator of the principal Internet web, allowed commercial subjects to join as well.
Internet in the CR
November 1991 is usually stated as the date when the CSFR was connected to the Internet. In VC CVUT the first trials to connect the Internet to the junction in Linz were successfully performed. Formally, the CSFR was connected to the Internet in a celebration on 13 February, 1992. The Internet was accessible in Prague at CVUT, but other schools and institutions from all over the CR were also asking to be connected. In December 1991, the Czech Ministry of Education approved a project presented by the Academia and in July 1992, 20 million CZK were invested in creating a spine network connecting university towns. The Slovak section of the project was supported by the Slovak Ministry of Education. Once the CSFR became dividend, the FESNET split into CESNET and the Slovak SANET. In November 1992, a fixed line allowed connection between Prague and Brno – two main junctions of CESNET network – and by the end of March, 1993, 9 towns were already connected.
Although CESNET was built as an academic network, it reacted to the demand and soon also became a commercial provider. Today it is one of many - which testifies to the great dynamism in the Internet world: in 7 years it has developed from zero to a highly developed competitive environment. At present, the Internet belongs among very important media when placing advertising.
Advantages of advertising on the Internet:
Speed
One click suffices for a customer to find some information about your products or services. Another click (if the advertiser has an internet shop) is enough to order the goods. Compare it with advertising in the radio, TV, newspaper or a catalogue where the whole process is much more complicated: a customer must ask to be sent your offer, then wait several days before it arrives and only then an order can be made. But by then they can lose their interest.
Advertising targeted at the target customer group
No other advertising media can target its advertising so precisely at the end customer. The advertiser addresses only those subjects which are looking for information concerning their offer. For example, a company dealing with window production and assembly buys the word "windows" on the internet – it will address all customers searching this word – for some reason they are interested in windows. But if you pay advertising on radio, TV or in the newspaper or a catalogue, many people will see it but those who are looking for windows are only a few. The company logically pays also for those who are not interested in their offer at all.
Precise campaign evaluation
Once the advertising campaign is over, you will receive exact results about how successful it was. You will know exactly how many users have seen your advertising and how many of them have gone through your pages. With other forms of advertising your are never able to get such precise feedback.
Price
It is related to previous points. You do not have to print expensive leaflets – all information is already there, on your Internet pages. You will save money on the postage – you do not have to send these leaflets. And, last but not least, you address only your potential customers – that is, those who are already actively searching for your products or services.
Who uses the Internet?
- The number of Czechs who are interested in the Internet has risen to 67%, it is used by 31% of the population (this is practically almost 2.4 million Czech inhabitants)
- 40% of the Czech population uses a PC at home, 21% surfs on the Internet. The number of people who have access to the Internet in their home has increased ten times in the last 4 years.
What is a portal?
Search engines or portals on the Internet serve for orientation in the unlimited amount of information on the Internet. A portal is a server with registered references to other www pages. These references are organised into various fields (so called sections). Each section contains a title (by clicking on the title you will get to the www page belonging to the reference). It contains a more detailed description (a text describing the content of the www pages referred to).
There are two types of search on portals:
- You can search by sections – fields in which the references are organised.
- Full-text search – into the search windows you write a word you want to find. The search engine will offer a number of references containing the key word.