Surfing Web:

The first thing internet is ...is "information". Lots of it. Anything you want to know or need to know can be found on internet, but where do you find it? There are so many resources and ways of finding information. Surfing web is probably best way to find non-targeted information and find a new website. When surfing web you basically, start with a common site (or not so common). Begin by browsing content within site...then you click on a link which takes you to another site and you browse through its content, click on a link within that site which takes you to another external site...and you are surfing web. Browsing through content. Those few task just mentioned can sometimes be an hour or two worth of surfing, mostly depending on interest of content.

Searching Web:

A more targeted approach is trying to find information about a specific product, service, person, place, or thing. For targeted searches we need a tool, something that will help us find what we are looking for. The most common tool is "search engines". Search engines are designed for this particular task, to find information across web. Search engines have special digital robots which search through millions of websites at incredibly rapid speeds, crawling and digging through tons of websites and indexing them into its databases for faster retrieval. When you go to a search engine like Google and type in a keyword or phrase then click search you are presented with URL's which have been indexed within search engine database and matches keyword or phrase which you entered. It cannot be expressed enough to say how well you should familiarize yourself with using a major search engine. You should be able to use a search engine to find just about anything you can think of.

Forums & Discussion Groups:

Forums & Discussion Groups are a great way to find information on web. Participation and contribution is what makes a forum or discussion group useful, powerful, and successful. These are ways to help others, communicate with others, share knowledge or experiences with others, or simply chat and network with others. Most forums or discussion groups are niche markets and targeted to a particular audience. There are a few that are for general population. A very popular forum in webmaster world is WebmasterWorld.com (no pun intended), their targeted market is webmasters, online advertisers, search engine optimizers, internet engineers, and internet enthusiast. You can find very useful information within most forums & discussion groups. The proper way to participate & contribute to forums & discussion groups is to help others when you genuinely have an answer, don't just guess and post...you can make an educated guess and post, but blindly guessing just to raise your rank is childish and unhealthy for platform. When debating, remain civil and courteous to others. When debating, you should have some sense of intelligence and knowledge about topic at hand. Respect others opinions and views. Don't try to change minds but try to get your point across rationally. Never pick a fight or get in between a heated discussion. Keep your username/handle (and real name) respectable. Remember that you cannot hide on internet any information you provide or any public information can come back and bite you....e.g. username stalking, which I will get into more about later. Stick to those guidelines and your forums & discussion group experience may be well received.

Blogs a.k.a. Weblogs, Online Journals, or Online Diaries:

If you have any interest in blogs or weblogs as a publishing format, then you have undoubtedly come across term R.S.S.

Under normal conditions, content of a web page is limited to one domain, and visitor to it. To allow use of content on a larger number of sites, syndication is employed.

This is where RSS comes into equation. A site owner or blogger using his site as a pulpit for any number of topics can make his content available via RSS. Once done, his comments or content will be fed to news aggregators for syndication/delivery to those interested in such content.

What is RSS? "RSS" stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. It is a standard for publishing regular updates to web-based content.

It is a simple technology for sharing and distributing content like data, news headlines and other web page content with other webmasters and users.

RSS is like email in that it is used to collect and deliver content you have opted to receive. News aggregators collect "feeds"(syndicated content) from a blog and publish it. If you have an RSS Reader you can subscribe to ‘feed’ and receive current up to date content from your favorite content source.

Using this standard, a blog owner/web publisher can provide updates, such as latest news headlines or weblog postings to those interested in such content.

With RSS, blog owner could update his/her readers with new content and use RSS as a means of organizing his content into a more accessible form to benefit of anyone wishing to use it.

Use it, not simply read it!

Uses for RSS: Get your site listed in search engine and RSS directories.

Use RSS to update your websites with fresh, relevant content - automatically - without writing a single word. You can turn RSS feeds into customized HTML and display feed on your website.