_Abandoned: A perspective on the modern high street and commerce

 

10 Interesting Things About The internet

1) The future of the Internet is weird! I found a series of youtube videos that predicted the landscape of the internet in the future and non were anything like it is today. Each video depicted a different scenario for the internet's future, however they all focussed on the theme of the how open the web is and how this might change in the future due to, politics, corporations and the separation of nations wanting to control the flow of information. I found it of particular interest researching into the future of the internet because often we take the internet for granted but there are many political and social factors that could lead to change in the internet and before we know it we may have an internet that is nothing like it is today.

2) Stuxnet. Another short youtube video I found was about the extent of virus that exist within the world wide web, however one in particular is of great significance and that is stuxnet. Stuxnet is the first virus to target system of information that are not public use and system of information that control industrial processes, such as oil rigs, transport networks and so on. Although many in power deny it's existence, it does exist and it is readily available on the internet for anyone to download and play around the code and develop there own version of the virus.

3) The United Kingdom is slow, in comparison with the rest of the world our internet is extremely slow but we are one of the biggest westernised countries so how can this be. Although the EU is ranked highest in the world many easternised countries are way ahead in terms of technology and speed with Hong Kong at the top of the list with there internet speed average reaching 44 Mbps. Before researching into the internet speed I assumed that Britain would be one of the fastest countries but it was interesting to find we are not even in the top ten.

4) The Internet and the environment. One thing that really shocked me the most was how the internet impacts on the environment, its clearly obvious that it has an effect on our planet but you never really associate the use of the internet with drastic contributions to environmental change. For every second of youtube video watched on the internet 0.2g of CO2 is used and we watched in average 2 billions youtube videos a day. I'm interested in subject of the environment on a general but to combine this with the subject of the internet returned some interesting findings, particularly when you consider the vastness of the internet and the huge contributions it make to the environment.

5) Growth. Through looking at statistics its easy to see the dramatic growth the internet sees in every aspect of the technology from severs, to websites to users to amount of viruses. The statistics rise year on year and not but a little but by a lot. There aren't many technologies in our world that grow like the internet, it seems as if it can't stop it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and becoming an evermore integral part of our lives.

6) Censorship is an issue i'm really interested in as I believe the internet should be an open environment as that what's made the internet what is today and why it is so popular, but many countries in the world such as china censor there internet to control what it's society and read and view of the internet allowing the government to stop the flow of information ad freedom of speech, corporations such as google have to abide by these censorship's guidelines.

7) Online retail sales have grown by 113% over the last five yearsEcommerce became the main area I focused my research because I find the relationship between ecommerce, internet shopping and the high street intresting, the statistics show it all, ecommerce is on the rise and the high street is taking a drastic fall in nothingness.

8) An interesting aspect of the internet I found was the types of things people search for and use the internet for, google offer an expansive tool to allow you to search for the most popular search terms for any given year and the change for year to year. Back in 2002 the number one googled term was 'Spider man' in 2012 'Rebecca Black' was the most googled term this suggests how our internet habits have changed for using the internet to find out about commercial entertainment to now viewing user generated content on youtube and looking at and creating memes. 

9) Friendster or Facebook. I have always found the creation of Facebook to be an interesting story, which I still don't think is complete one, but one interesting thing to remember is that Facebook was not the first social network. Before Facebook was Friendster and Facebook maybe has to thank Friendster for some of the work it did in the industry of social networking. Social networking as a whole is really interesting it's something that is still very immature in its lifecycle and has a long future of innovation ahead. 

10) Where does the internet come from? The internet is just there, its on our phones and it's in our homes but it was interesting to find out where it comes from us and how it gets to us.