To say that the internet today is better than the internet we knew many many years ago would be a huge understatement. From being used all those years ago for university’, research and the military to its many uses today is a massive achievement.Not only has the internet changed from when it was introduced, it has also changed peoples lives – well in a way – people can now do a lot of things on the internet (whether they do or not is a different matter):

• Shopping – an obvious and yet very useful tool available on the internet now is the ability to shop – not only for new toys, gadgets and computer stuff but also for groceries, convenient goods and kitchen appliances.
• Home videos – another obvious choice here is linked to YouTube, home videos and such posted on the internet, but there are a vast amount of websites which enable you to do this – Vimeo is another example of a brilliant website which in all honesty is exactly the same as YouTube.
• Blogs – Keeping up to date with family members you don’t see often or even people you don’t know, just to find out about them and follow them through their life. Whilst once diaries were a secret and private entity now they are so much more. With blogs people can spill more information about themselves on the internet than they ever would to an actual person, which is a rather odd concept.
• Social networking – a debatable subject – are these really any good for the world? Well, this doesn’t really matter. They are certainly a popular web idea and get a lot of traffic; they also allow you to find more out about people that you don’t know but also to find out about those who you may have lost contact with a long time ago. On the negative side – if people are ‘socialising’ on the internet, what’s happening to their social life in the real world?
• News – There is no real need for newspapers or the news on TV anymore as the internet fully fulfils our need for up-to-date news. We can get it from almost all sources now and get an equal view easily – we can even comment with our thoughts on news stories and so on.
• ‘Geek’ news – Slightly different to the other news this cannot be retrieved in ‘the real world’ apart from in magazines, the odd newspaper column and a couple of TV programmes but the internet is so much better than all of these anyway – it’s so up to date it’s almost instantaneous with, for example, live coverage from a new gadget launch, software update and other happenings in the world of geekdom.
• Music – Downloadable music – a very large step away from cassettes and CDs. Music downloads are becoming more and more popular, have been introduced into the chart ranking system and are easier than ever with iTunes (which I do not condone as I dislike Apple strongly – personal but still valid views).
• Podcasts – Such a wide variety of genres and entertainment, they can keep people amused for ages both in audio and video form.
• Software – who needs to buy software in stores when it can easily be purchased (or through freeware) and downloaded much quicker, more easily and hassle free. It also classes as saving the earth for a small part as you are not wasting the materials used to make a software disk and case when you are going to install the software and then let the disk pile up dust and nothing else for the next few years.
• Research – Whilst perhaps not always as accurate as books in a library research can be done much more quickly and easily on the internet, which is extremely useful for little things like checking up an actor in a movie or answers for a pub quiz (Shhh!). It may not however be advised to use it as a source of information for educational purposes – college or universities don’t like it – apparently, although I can’t imagine why, what with Wikipedia being easily edited by know-nothings (yes, I do know there are methods in place to prevent errors but there must be loads, surely?)
• Selling stuff – Ebay. I had to come to it sooner or later. The amount of money some people can make on it must be astonishing, it may even have allowed people to work from home very easily with perhaps less effort than some other jobs. Similarly it makes selling second-hand goods easy too.
• Communicating – Email, IM and VoIP are all very useful and very functional, making contacting friends, family and random people very cheap, easy and sometimes fun. I believe that many people spend a high proportion of their time on the internet using these services, making them invaluable. They are just another proof point that the internet is very functional as well as fun.
• Time management – Services such as ‘Remember the milk’ and Google calendar could be used by many people to organise their time and essentially their life. The main difference to a normal diary is that they are both online and therefore accessible anywhere with internet access. No need to worry if you’ve forgotten your diary or even your PDA or laptop as they could still be 5 minutes away from controlling your life (which I think is scary but a useful leap for the internet).
• Videos and TV – At first I had thought only the BBC iPlayer and 4oD cover this but the Sling box and all its competitors can come into this category too. Some people find the latter invaluable – especially if they travel a lot as it’s like having your sky+ box with you no matter where you go, which of course would be a dream come true for many TV fanatics. Whilst I admit that they are not primarily internet services they do use the web which is why they are allowed in this list.
• Fun and rubbish – I end on a high note. The internet may have its uses but it’s no use at all without its ridiculous and time-wasting ones, from images of cats with silly captions to videos of mad people going down escalators on skis to games looking as if Pac Man has mated with Snake from Nokia phones – This would be called Niblet.

And to conclude (*Sigh of relief*), my point is that the internet has come on a long way, and has also offered some useful services to us, some of which could affect people very badly if they were taken away. This is the technology I like. It’s nice to be able to look back and think that there were some people saying at the introduction of the internet “Well that’ll never work” or “Oh I can’t see that going very far.” Oh, how these people have been proved wrong.