Most Internet access accounts come with a few basics that let you begin sharing information around the Internet, and even enough to build your home on the ‘net. This helps to support new users as they begin stretching out and communicating with family, friends, coworkers, clients, and who knows who else that may be out there.
You start off with an email address and a mail server of your ISPs that you can use to stay connected with friends, co-workers and family; and email has become so engrained in our culture that many people consider it more important to their ability to communicate as their telephone.
Many ISPs also offer free or low-cost web space for hosting a small personal website, with a URL like www.yourISP.com/~username) , and that's good enough to store a few files and put up a few web pages for your friends and family to see. This is what started the explosion in popularity of the World Wide Web, when everyone from parents and grandparents through to teens and grade schoolers had a page that talked about themselves and their interests or opinions. Building your own web site can be intimidating, however, there are programs that can build a site in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) manner, and web developers are around who can build simple sites without causing a big dent in your wallet.
Other popular web applications include IRC, IM and FTP - sometimes used as buzzwords, but each giving a different way of communicating with others. IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, is a server-based list of chat rooms - you run an IRC program on your computer, tell it to connect with a unique username of your choice, and then you choose different groups (there are tens of thousands of them, with more growing every day) from support groups for specific games to singles chatting about religion - respect the rules when chatting and you can make some good online friends. IM, or Instant Messaging, is also very popular among coworkers and friends, with popular messaging programs like Google Talk, MSN and Yahoo Messenger that need to be downloaded and then uploaded with the list of your friends and contacts - you can then chat with them whenever you happen to be online and logged in. FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is a communications program with a very specific use - it allows you to connect to a specific server and upload or download files quickly, and with the right program, you can let your family download your latest video creation by FTP off of your home computer.
Blogging and blogs, which take their name from "web log", has become a huge part of the ‘net as users write and update online journals to share with family and friends. Ironically enough, they inevitably get stumbled upon by outsiders and can turn up in the news as political commentaries, on-the-scene news reporters, or community expert columnists. These online diaries allow for more impromptu and personal sharing of daily thoughts and photos and allow visitors to comment on their views of the world - some are even read as regularly as a daily newspaper and get dozens of messages of feedback on every update.
