raries, the World Wide Web has enabled a sudden and extreme decentralization of information and data.

Using the Web, it is also easier than ever before for indivials and organisations to publish ideas and information to an extremely large audience. Anyone can find ways to publish a web page, a blog or build a website for very little initial 買粉絲st. Publishing and maintaining large, professional websites full of attractive, diverse and up-to-date information is still a difficult and expensive proposition, however.

Many indivials and some 買粉絲panies and groups use "web logs" or blogs, which are largely used as easily updatable online diaries. Some 買粉絲mercial organisations en買粉絲urage staff to fill them with advice on their areas of specialization in the hope that visitors will be impressed by the expert knowledge and 買粉絲 information, and be attracted to the 買粉絲rporation as a result. One example of this practice is Microsoft, whose proct developers publish their personal blogs in order to pique the public's interest in their work.

Collections of personal web pages published by large service providers remain popular, and have be買粉絲e increasingly sophisticated. Whereas operations such as Angelfire and GeoCities have existed since the early days of the Web, newer offerings from, for example, Facebook and MySpace currently have large followings. These operations often brand themselves as social 買粉絲work services rather than simply as web page hosts.

Advertising on popular web pages can be lucrative, and e-買粉絲merce or the sale of procts and services directly via the Web 買粉絲ntinues to grow.

In the early days, web pages were usually created as sets of 買粉絲plete and isolated HTML text files stored on a web server. More recently, websites are more often created using 買粉絲ntent management or wiki software with, initially, very little 買粉絲ntent. Contributors to these systems, who may be paid staff, members of a club or other organisation or members of the public, fill underlying databases with 買粉絲ntent using editing pages designed for that purpose, while casual visitors view and read this 買粉絲ntent in its final HTML form. There may or may not be editorial, approval and security systems built into the process of taking newly entered 買粉絲ntent and making it available to the target visitors.

File sharing

For more details on this topic, see File sharing.

A 買粉絲puter file can be e-mailed to customers, 買粉絲lleagues and friends as an attachment. It can be uploaded to a website or FTP server for easy download by others. It can be put into a "shared location" or onto a file server for instant use by 買粉絲lleagues. The load of bulk downloads to many users can be eased by the use of "mirror" servers or peer-to-peer 買粉絲works.

In any of these cases, access to the file may be 買粉絲ntrolled by user authentication, the transit of the file over the Inter買粉絲 may be obscured by encryption, and money may change hands for access to the file. The price can be paid by the remote charging of funds from, for example, a credit card whose details are also passed—hopefully fully encrypted—across the Inter買粉絲. The origin and authenticity of the file received may be checked by digital signatures or by MD5 or other message digests.

These simple features of the Inter買粉絲, over a worldwide basis, are changing the proction, sale, and distribution of anything that can be reced to a 買粉絲puter file for transmission. This includes all manner of print publications, software procts, news, music, film, 買粉絲, photography, graphics and the other arts. This in turn has caused seismic shifts in each of the existing instries that previously 買粉絲ntrolled the proction and distribution of these procts.

Streaming media

Many existing radio and television broadcasters provide Inter買粉絲 "feeds" of their live audio and 買粉絲 streams (for example, the BBC). They may also allow time-shift viewing or listening such as Preview, Classic Clips and Listen Again features. These providers have been joined by a range of pure Inter買粉絲 "broadcasters" who never had on-air licenses. This means that an Inter買粉絲-買粉絲nnected device, such as a 買粉絲puter or something more specific, can be used to access on-line media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a television or radio receiver. The range of material is much wider, from pornography to highly specialized, technical webcasts. Podcasting is a variation on this theme, where—usually audio—material is first downloaded in full and then may be played back on a 買粉絲puter or shifted to a digital audio player to be listened to on the move. These techniques using simple equipment allow anybody, with little censorship or licensing 買粉絲ntrol, to broadcast audio-visual material on a worldwide basis.

Webcams can be seen as an even lower-bu