A self-service environment in which consumers carry out activities and transactions independently

The internet allows you to become very independent and allows you the full control to undergo activities and transactions that may be a hassle for some depending on their situation such as age or location etc. or even if they do have the ability to do these easily they prefer to do so without having to leave the comfort of there own home and with little effort whatsoever. Some of these activities may include even simple things such as shopping, enabling all different types of shopping such as shopping for your essentials e.g. food and grocery shopping or shopping for luxuries for your personal benefit such as clothes shopping or buying new technology, both of which you can have delivered to your house to eliminate leaving the house all together or have them made available in a store nearest to you. Another ever growing revolution in independent transactions is that of on-line banking making it easy to pay any costs that need paying such as bills for extremes from your house payments e.g. heating and electricity to lending some money to a friend or family member by transferring money that they ask to borrow or you owe them form a past event.

Mobile technologies that are blurring the distraction between at home and work.

Thanks to current day technology it is just as easy to work from home than to physically have to actually go to work and if you really wanted to you can make having to go to work an unnecessary task. You can now work from home without the need for a computer as more modern technologies such as tablets and mobile phones can now do the same job, if not more and even at a greater speed. Mobile phones, if used properly and to their full potential, can be more advanced and a better form of work than most computers and allows you to work at home or even anywhere when you're not at work. The wide variety of tablets available to buy now make it much easier to work from home and can actually turn out to be a much cheaper way to work as it saves money on the original purchase of equipment and you can even save money in areas such as fuel money as you no longer have to drive to your work wherever it may be without the need to. With modern technology like the wide variety of laptops, tablets and mobile phones it means that even if you do choose to work from your office it means you can bring them back to your home and work from the comfort of your own sofa or bed.

Virtual communities (where people are brought together by the internet)

There are many forms of virtual communities that allow people to connect and communicate with each other. the most popular of these are social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Facebook provides pages for people to bring communities together through by sharing common interest and a similarity in the subjects they like, plus on sites such as Facebook it allows you to connect through messages and communicate on common interests and meet new people and make new friends, however you have to be cautious of how you approach people on the internet as they may not actually be who they appear through the internet. Sites like Twitter allow you to share your opinions, thoughts, interests and likes etc. so that you can become more involved with people similar to yourself and to some people gives them a sense of freedom and somewhere to share and talk to people abut something both you and them thoroughly enjoy. Tumblr is a post related website where a post is put and people can repost and comment on things that they wish and is also a place where many fandoms seek refuge to find other people similar to themselves. Blogs are also another way in which many virtual communities exist and communicate with each other by all talking on a topical interest which they can also all give advice and support to each other trough. Another way that is constantly and rapidly growing in popularity are video chat services such as Skype and Google Hangout which allows you to physically see those who you want to talk to and can have a much higher level of interaction than through other websites and forms.

Increased Business Opportunities (large or small)

The internet has helped businesses both large and small to communicate with their customer on a much larger scale as it allows the business to keep in touch with their customers regularly through emails notifying them of any deals or special offers that are available to them and can also let customers know of new products through the use of internet sites and social networking sites to promote themselves and their sales. The business can also open themselves up for a new group of customers who would not otherwise be able to access or be able to travel to their stores if they're a big company and if they're a smaller business it helps them to expand due to widening their range of customers from a local small business just providing for that town and allowing people from all over the country or possibly the world to purchase their products as well as being able to promote themselves on a much larger scale. Being online can also lead to a lot more publicity purely from customers as they can tell their friends to go check out the website rather than telling them to have to go to the shop of the business which they may not be able to do and may deter them from the business.

Greater Interaction With Others and Organisations

 

Thanks to the internet business can now start up independently through the internet without the need to travel to meet clients so they can save money to reinvest into the business and can instead video conference with them or contact through email or instant messaging apps or websites and this then allows the company to be able to get in touch with more potential suppliers and be able to appeal to more customers than if it was just a small local shop. It also means that existing businesses can expand on the internet appealing to new customers and making it easier to keep in touch with their customers through regular emails and allow them to even expand to different regions where people may not have access to one of their stores. It also allows customers to give feedback to the company on their products or service and seek help and advice if they have a problem.

Sharing Infromation In Different Ways

There are many ways in which you can share information quickly that range in a variety of forms. The most popular of ways especially with the younger generation are social networking sites such as Facebook which allows you to post a ‘status’ instantly and express your views on a matter or subject allowing the people who you are friends with to view and leave comments on so can interact and receive feedback from. As well on Facebook pages are set up and used by some businesses so that people can have easy access to them just by searching for them on Facebook and finding their page where the administrator can share any information that they wish to let their customers or even just those with an interest in the company know about first hand, people can even post onto that page if they wish to get in touch with the company so that they are more aware and in touch with their customers. As well as through Facebook you can use the message function to allow you to share information with specific people without other people knowing. Twitter is another form of sharing information quickly as you compose a tweet and share it for anyone to see. Blogs are also a key way that people share their information quickly and allow other people to comment and interact back with them whilst sharing any information or pictures, videos etc. and they range from the social forms of blog sharing such as Tumblr to websites for businesses where their customers can give their opinion on a product or ask for help and other bloggers can comment and give advice or help which are a similar system to forums that websites use to get feedback and give support to their customers.  All of which these ways are now available to use through 3G or 4G devices and can be used on the move so that it allows you to share the information wherever you are and apps are now available for some devices for the social networking tools to share information even quicker by bypassing the internet browser all together.

Presenting Information In Different Ways Using The Internet.

There are many ways in which you can present your information and data online, all of which you can use to spread your message or information. The first way is in a text based format and is used on virtually every website you would visit whilst on the internet, the most popular would be Wikipedia as it displays a lot of information through text and delivers the required amount of knowledge and detailed explanation you need. It also does use another form of presenting information but on a minor scale, which is the use of pictures and images to present information. The main websites which use this form of presentation are sites such as Google Images and the image search on Bing as it displays pictures that include the information you have asked for or relevant information from your search. Another popular way to present information is through the use of videos and flash videos that can be used to present the general persons view through sites such as YouTube and on a company website they put of videos that allow you to see the inner workings of the business and meet some of the employees as well as take a tour of the buildings or facilities, which brings me on to the next form which can be used is a flash based virtual program that is used today by some businesses so it allows you to take a tour of the building yourself and also by mobile phone websites such as Carphone Warehouse so you can have a full 360 degree view of the mobile phone to have maximum potential of the viewing stage of the product.