Internet

apakah kebaikan dan keburukan iklan kepada orang awam ?

Iklan sudah menjadi sebahagian daripada kehidupan masyarakat moden. Kerap kali kita mendengar komen mengenai pengaruh iklan dalam masyarakat kita.

Pada pandangan anda, apakah pengaruh-pengaruh positif dan negatif yang dibawa oleh iklan terhadap masyarakat.

Sememangnya iklan sudah menjadi sebahagian lumrah kehidupan manusia sejagat pada era globalisasi ini. Iklan jelas terpampang di mana-mana seperti akhbar, poster, papan iklan gergasi, dan radio. Situasi ini seolah-olah membuktikan betapa kuatnya pengaruh iklan dalam kehidupan kita. Jadi, iklan memang membawa pengaruh-pengaruh positif dan negatif terhadap kehidupan insan di dunia ini.

Pengaruh positif iklan ialah iklan menyebabkan pengguna mempunyai pilihan untuk membuat pembeliannya. Kewujudan iklan menyebabkan pengguna mengetahui betapa banyaknya produk yang sama tetapi berlainan jenama dihasilkan pada zaman ini. Pengguna akan menggunakan semua maklumat yang ada di dalam iklan untuk membuat pilihan terbaik mereka. Iklan memastikan pengguna membeli produk yang terbaik mengikut keperluan mereka.

Selain itu, iklan menyebabkan wujudnya persaingan yang sihat antara pengeluar sesuatu produk itu. Kalau kita kaji, pengeluar sesuatu produk itu akan cuba menghasilkan iklan yang terbaik mengikut kemampuan mereka untuk menarik minat pembeli. Keadaan ini menyebabkan semua pihak cuba menonjolkan kelebihan produk mereka berbanding produk pesaing. Jelaslah, iklan menyebabkan pengeluar memastikan produk mereka menepati mutu seperti yang tersiar di dalam iklan mereka itu.

Namun begitu, iklan turut memiliki wajah negatifnya. Iklan sering mempergunakan wanita terutama wanita seksi untuk melariskan jualan produk mereka. Malah, ada produk yang tidak mempunyai kaitan dengan wanita tetapi menggunakan wajah wanita seksi untuk iklan tersebut. Penggunaan model lelaki yang tampan dan sasa turut diekploitasikan oleh iklan. Keadaan ini seolah-olah memberi makna palsu seperti penggunaan produk ini akan menghasilkan wajah sebegitu atau penggunaan produk ini menyebabkan wanita sebegini akan tertarik kepada seseorang. Bayangkan pengaruhnya kepada remaja kita?

Tambahan pula, kewujudan iklan menyebabkan harga barangan akan meningkat. Kos untuk menghasilkan sesuatu iklan amat tinggi kerana penggunaan model, teknologi dan krew penerbitan yang berpengalaman. Malah, iklan yang disiarkan di media massa terpaksa membayar kos masa penyiaran yang terlalu mahal. Keadaan ini menyebabkan pengeluar akan meninggikan harga produk mereka untuk memastikan iklan dapat dihasilkan.

Malahan, iklan turut menyebabkan pengguna memberi barangan yang tidak mereka perlukan. Pembelian mereka semata-mata atas dasar melihat iklan yang menarik. Penayangan iklan telah menyebabkan mereka tertarik dan membeli barangan itu walaupun barangan itu tidak mereka perlukan untuk satu tempoh yang lama. Sikap ini menjurus ke arah pembaziran dan pembelian yang boleh menyebabkan pengguna berhutang atau mengalami masalah kewangan.

Kesimpulannya, iklan mempunyai dua peranan. Satu untuk memberitahu dan satu lagi untuk memusnahkan. Mungkin pengguna perlu bersikap bijak dengan membuat penilaian rasional selepas melihat sesuatu iklan. Pengguna tidak harus terburu-buru membeli selepas melihat iklan. Atau mungkin iklan harus diharamkan.

ADVANTAGES OF ECOMMERCE

1. Faster buying/selling procedure, as well as easy to find products.
2. Buying/selling 24/7.
3. More reach to customers, there is no theoretical geographic limitations.
4. Low operational costs and better quality of services.
5. No need of physical company set-ups.
6. Easy to start and manage a business.
7. Customers can easily select products from different providers without moving around physically.

   Challanges of e commerce

• Technological challenges

1. Security
2. Web site issues
3. Technology issues including costs,
4. software, infrastructure
5. Managerial challenges
6. People and organisational issues
7. Obtaining senior management backing
8. Business challenges
9. Customer service

The development of what we now call the Internet started in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first satellite, beating the United States into space. The powers behind the American military at the time became highly alarmed as this meant that the USSR could theoretically launch bombs into space, and then drop them anywhere on earth. In 1958 the concerns of people in the US military triggered the creation of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

DARPA's initial role was to jump start American research in technology, find safeguards against a space-based missile attack and to reclaim the technological lead from the USSR. After only 18 months after the creation of DARPA, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency had developed and deployed the first US satellite. DARPA went on to have a direct contribution to the development of the Internet by appointing Joseph Licklider to head the new Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO).

It was the job of the IPTO to further the work previously done by members of the "SAGE" (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) program and develop technologies to protect the US against a space-based nuclear attack.

Licklider envisaged the potential benefits of a countrywide communications network, influencing his successors to implement his vision and to hire Lawrence Roberts who at that time was carrying out research with networks which was also being funded by DARPA.

Roberts led development of the ARPANet network architecture, and based it on the new idea of packet switching. A special computer called an Interface Message Processor was developed to realise the design. The ARPANet first went live in October 1969, with communications between the University of California in Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute.

The first networking protocol used on the ARPANet was the Network Control Program. In 1983, it was replaced with the TCP/IP protocol, which is still the standard used today.

In 1990, the National Science Foundation took over management of what was then called the NSFNet, and significantly expanded its reach by connecting it to the CSNET in Universities throughout North America, and later to the EUnet throughout research facilities in Europe.

Thanks in large part to the NSF's free-thinking management, and the growing popularity of the web, the nature of the Internet changed quickly in 1992, when the U.S. government began pulling out of network management and commercial entities offered Internet access to the general public for the first time. This change marked the beginning of the Internet's astonishing expansion. According to a survey conducted by CommerceNet and Nielsen Media Research in 1997, the number of users worldwide was believed to be well into the tens of millions. The so called Internet explosion coincided with the advent of increasingly powerful yet reasonably priced personal computers with easy-to-use GUI's (Graphical User Interfaces). The result was an attraction of recent computer converts to the Internet, and new multimedia capabilities, the size, scope and design of which allows users to:

• connect easily through ordinary personal computers

• exchange electronic mail with friends and colleagues

• post and update frequently, information for others to access

• access multimedia information that includes sound, photographic images and video

• access diverse attitudes and perspectives from around the world

• to directly and transparently communicate between computers

Today, the Internet is not owned or funded by any one institution, organisation, or government, it is a self-sustaining widespread information infrastructure accessible to hundreds of millions of people world-wide. The Internet is, however, directed by the Internet Society (ISOC), which is composed of volunteers. ISOC appoints the IAB (Internet Architecture Board) sub-council, the appointed members of which decide on standards, network resources, and network addresses. The day-to-day issues of Internet operation is taken care by of curtsy of a volunteer group called the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).

In brief a small number of governing boards work to establish common standards, few rules or single organisation bind the Internet, essentially the Internet is in the most part an ungoverned global network of networks.

• The Internet was invented by the US Department of Defence as a means of communication if we were attacked by Russia. That was in 1969. The WWW on the other hand was invented by an Englishman called Tim Berners-Lee in Switzerland in 1989. The Internet dates back to the 1950s and 60s, although few of us knew of it then as it was part of the American defence system.

• Some say development started in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first satellite.

• I think it's the difference between pop culture and invention that confuses people. The origins of the Internet stretch back to the 1950s and the invention of the World Wide Web to 1989, but the Internet IS a newish innovation as far as pop culture is concerned as it only really kicked into the lives of the vast majority of us after the 1989 invention of WWW.

• DARPA was created in 1958. But this only started the research that led to create the Internet. The Network Control Protocol (NCP) was finalized and deployed in December 1970 by the Network Working Group (NWG), led by Steve Crocker. But it was not until RFC 768 "User Datagram Protocol", RFC 791 "Internet Protocol", RFC 792 "Internet Control Message Protocol, RFC 793 "Transmission Control Protocol" were ratified in 1980 and 1981 that the Internet took shape. Modern protocols like e-mail, ftp, telnet, http ... all depend on these underlying protocols. The ARPANET host protocol was switched from NCP to TCP/IP as of January 1, 1983. The underlying protocols that run the Internet have fundamentally changed since this date. Much later on Mar. 11, 1999 Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." References: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

• The seed of what would become the internet was created by ARPANET in 1969. It was basically a group of researchers working for the Department of Defense.