Everyone knows
internet can be very useful for finding information or learning something new. In all honesty, internet should be your number 1 resource for finding any remote information. The problem is everyone do not know how to use internet to find information or to their advantage. It's simple and I'll give some tips & secrets to successfully using internet to your advantage.
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:
This is next generation way of obtaining information on web, but gracefully becoming a prominent way. Blogs are not only personal entries about a individual life. Blogs are used to convey information and provide a confident platform for retrieving latest trends, gossip, news, information, rumors, and hype. This can be accomplished by an individual, a group, or a company. Most blogs allow visitors to leave a comment. Familiarizing yourself with a handful of blogs is a perfect way to network and connect yourself with people who share your interest. Blogs are mainly niche markets, though there are many successful miscellaneous, personal, and general blogs. Blogs are most successful when updated daily and is dependent on social and emotional connection you have with your audience. Blogs are usually personal thoughts, opinions, views, and experiences of individuals. Sometimes individuals form a group and author a group blog, providing thoughts, opinions, views, and experiences from each member of group, this sometimes makes a more powerful and interesting blog, a popular blog which utilizes groups is boingboing.net. It is a good idea to start a blog of your very own, there are numerous free blog host out here, such as: journalhome.com, blogger.com, and livejournal.com. The blog host makes it easy to begin blogging (the art known as authoring a blog). You simply signup for their service, choose your template (design & layout), and begin writing your entries. You do not need to know any programming, but it helps to understand HTML, if you plan to fully customize your template. It does not matter what you write about, it can be personal, professional, casual, informative, instructional, entertaining, or anything you can muster up. It is your personal space to author. Even though it is your personal space on web it is strongly recommended to limit your personal information on web, when visiting any website, never provide too many details. Once you have had your blog hosted for some months/years and it has grown to a respectable state, then you may decide to host your own blog. The main benefit of hosting your own blog is scalability and branding. Though, hosting your own blog means you will need to spend money, install scripts onto your server, and configure your script and server. I recommend using one of mentioned blog host before hosting your own blog, hosting your own blog without an audience is not wise. Blog host are best places to start, because it is free, easy, readily available, and they provide you a community (audience).
