The Internet's Impact on Journalism

New communication technology, including accessible online publishing software and evolving mobile device technology, means that citizens have the potential to observe and report more immediately than traditional media outlets do. Swarms of amateur online journalists are putting this technology to use, on open publishing sites such as Indymedia and on countless weblogs, adding a grassroots dimension to the media landscape. Bloggers and other amateur journalists are scooping mainstream news outlets as well as pointing out errors in mainstream articles, while people who’ve been made subjects of news articles are responding online, posting supplementary information to provide context and counterpoints. Increasingly, the public is turning to online sources for news, reflecting growing trust in alternative media.

While some traditional news outlets are reacting with fear and uncertainty, many are adopting open publishing features to their own online versions. The Guardian and other mainstream media outlets have added blogs to their sites. The BBC’s web site posts reader’s photos, and other sites solicit and use reader-contributed content. Mainstream news outlets are increasingly scanning blogs and other online sources for leads on news items, and some are hiring journalists from the blogging ranks. Journalists are blogging live from courtrooms, from Baghdad, and elsewhere, allowing them to post frequent updates in near real-time.

As the public turns toward participatory forms of online journalism, and as mainstream news outlets adopt more of those interactive features in their online versions, the media environment is shifting, slowly and incrementally, away from the broadcast model where the few communicate to the many, toward a more inclusive model in which publics and audiences also have voices.

Political Campaigning on the Internet

More and more organizations and corporations across the country are using the Internet for campaigns about issues rather than about individual candidates. The next phase in the Internet political revolution is an always on and always available online campaign.

Issue-advocacy campaigns are moving online in greater and greater numbers. Having an online web site for your campaign offers major advantages over traditional media, including cost, availability (24X7), control of content and the ability to focus your issue(s).

Granted many corporate websites spend enormous amounts of money on their websites but using the web for politics can be relatively inexpensive, just ask Governor Howard Dean. Even the web newbie can use many of the drag and drop website design tools (many of which are free) to build a respectable website in a matter of a few hours. A professional website usually costs just a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, or next to nothing if skilled volunteers are available. Hosting can be your least expensive outlay ranging from just a few dollars a month up to about twenty five dollars a month.

With traditional printed media a brochure used in a direct mailing can cost thousands for the design alone, plus tens-of-thousands of dollars for printing and postage. Television ads start in the tens-of-thousands range for a single 30 second ad.

On the other hand, email campaigns are nearly free. By use of the website volunteers' or supporters' addresses can be gathered, they then can be turned into a mailing list for regular issue notification and for overnight mobilization. A beneficial side effect is that recipients will often forward email newsletters to friends, family who would otherwise not have heard about your campaign.

Multimedia Marketing

Many marketing campaigns for products hook a potential customer in with a catchy advertisement. The hook may come in the form of a slogan or picture. While snappy text and pictorial design might make a customer take a second look, it does not always convert a customer lead into a sale. What Internet marketing tools can you utilize to convert more sales leads into actual customers?

The answer is multimedia marketing. What is multimedia marketing? Let's define “multimedia”. Multimedia is media that involves an advertisement that “talks and moves”. For example, multimedia contains more than just text and/or pictures. Multimedia advertisements contain audio and video elements. By adding audio and video ingredients to your marketing campaign you will see your sales conversion rates soar.

What exactly are audio and video multimedia marketing elements? Audio elements include voice-overs, sound effects, and music. For example, when a potential customer visits your web page the first thing that catches their eye is the beautiful graphics and text information. At this point your customer needs to feel an emotional connection with your company, products, and services. This is where audio elements play a role. Video elements are another tool you can employ in your marketing campaign. You can create your own Internet commercial. You can demonstrate how to use your product through a video. You could even video testimonials from happy customers. A video will allow potential customers to attach a “face” to the product or services you are selling.

The Internet is ready to handle sophisticated audio and video files. Plus, Internet technology is improving every day. You can create these audio and video components in the comfort of your own home or office. It really is that simple.

Internet Crime

Internet crime is crime committed on the Internet, using the Internet and by means of the Internet. Its is a general term that embraces such crimes as phishing, credit card frauds, bank robbery, illegal downloading, industrial espionage, child pornography, kidnapping children via chat rooms, harassment, scams, cyberterrorism, creation and/or distribution of viruses, spam and identity thief and so on. All such crimes are computer related and facilitated crimes. With the evolution of the Internet, along came another revolution of crime where the perpetrators commit acts of crime and wrongdoing on the World Wide Web. Internet crime takes many faces and is committed in diverse fashions. The number of users and their diversity in their makeup has exposed the Internet to everyone. Some criminals in the Internet have grown up understanding this superhighway of information, unlike the older generation of users. This is why Internet crime has now become a growing problem worldwide. Some crimes committed on the Internet have been exposed to the world and some remain a mystery up until they are perpetrated against someone or some company.

The different types of Internet crime vary in their design and how easily they are able to be committed. Internet crimes can be separated into two different categories. There are crimes that are only committed while being on the Internet and are created exclusively because of the World Wide Web. The typical crimes in criminal history are now being brought to a whole different level of innovation and ingenuity. Such new crimes devoted to the Internet are email “phishing”, hijacking domain names, virii propagation, and cyber vandalism. A couple of these crimes are activities that have been exposed and introduced into the world. People have been trying to solve virus problems by installing virus protection software and other software that can protect their computers. Other crimes such as email “phishing” are not as known to the public until an individual receives one of these fraudulent emails. These emails are cover faced by the illusion that the email is from your bank or another bank. When a person reads the email he/she is informed of a problem with he/she personal account or another individual wants to send the person some of their money and deposit it directly into their account. The email asks for your personal account information and when a person gives this information away, they are financing the work of a criminal.

My First Attempt (not a very good one) at Making a Video.