Although it has been only 15 years since the internet was launched, we have already seen dramatic changes in website design, code development and how they compete to attract users. Every year, the web is subject to many new innovations. This creates new business niches which are quickly claimed. Imagine what the internet could look like in 50 years or 100 years, with such rapid technological advancements. It's unfathomable. It won't be like the internet we know today, but it will become the epitome convenience and information.
Because of the limited bandwidth available in the 1990s, websites were initially simple. Websites had to have a limited number of images in order to be user-friendly. Website content changed dramatically with the introduction of dsl. Websites became more complicated and cluttered than ever before. Image buttons replaced text links. It was very popular to have so many pages that you couldn't see the end of it. Your download speeds on the 250k modem were only a fraction of what you could get due to bandwidth bottlenecks between the router servers and your modem.
It's great to see websites making a move towards page loading quickly. Google is the one who started this trend. Many new websites use the same style, with very minimal and well-organized content on the most important pages and large fonts. This is especially evident in the forms elements. It doesn't matter which site you visit, it feels great when websites get straight to the point quickly.
The browser support and SEO dictate the technologies to be used. Flash has a sleek design, but search engines can have trouble parsing flash elements. It is likely that you have noticed by now that flash is used sparingly on the sites at top of search results. Google is making progress but it is still months away form being able to effectively analyze flash content. Javascript was a major browser compatibility problem. It's now the industry standard for web applications, along with ajax/php. You won't have to reload the page every time you visit a website in a few years. This is the ultimate optimization, as you only need to load new content. Site navigation and redundant content do not need to be re-processed via a request.
All the application processing happens on the server side of a website. Perl was the most popular programming language for dynamic websites in the 1990s. This is largely C-based. Java, PHP, Ruby, and.NET followed. Java and PHP are the most popular. They are mainly different in that java is object-oriented and php is primarily a scripting language. However, php is becoming more object-oriented. Apart from differences in their libraries and semantics, php5 semantics are almost equivalent to java. Because PHP is open-source and easy to install on an Apache server, most hosting companies support it. It would be rare to find a cheap host that supports jsp. Because of their ease-of-use, Java and.NET are still preferred by enterprises for enterprise level applications. When you have multiple people working on a project, it is important to keep everything organized. Eclipse (also for PHP) and NetBeans are two free java IDEs.
SEO was in its early days all about keyword stuffing and backlinks. Everything seems to revolve around blogs now. It seems that I can't watch tv for more than 10 minutes without hearing "follow us on twitter". Although it was once a fun app that you could have on your website, it has become a necessity to have a well-syndicated blog that pings blogs like Technorati and Bloglines. Search engines use popular blogs to determine how high you should rank in search results, regardless of your business. Search engines use traffic from article sites to determine the quality of your content. It's also a waste to create a lot of low-quality links to your website from unrelated websites or directories with low traffic and page rank. It's a better use of your energy to find a partner who is established in the online marketplace. A link to your partner's site is worth 1,000 links from link farms.
Internet Technology helps small businesses compete efficiently
The trend that was once a business necessity is now more widely recognized. More companies are taking advantage of the internet because they can see how web-based solutions will streamline their business and help them save money and time. As they create eBusiness Infrastructure, small businesses can compete with Fortune 500 firms using Internet technology.
Businesses no longer have to build an IT infrastructure in-house to support the installation and maintenance of packaged software or hardware. Web-based solutions are accessible via the internet and a browser. They can provide integrated business tools such as Document Management, Customer Relations Management, Enterprise Phone Systems, and Enterprise Phone Systems that automate all aspects of business operations, regardless of what business they are. Olympic Moving and Storage is one example of a small business that successfully uses the internet's power. Two locations are used by the company. One location is located in MA, and the other in VA.
The adoption of an Internet-based business infrastructure has led to significant business growth. The company had two locations that were separated and there was no connection between them before implementing web-based solutions. First, the company implemented a VPN (virtual personal network). A VPN (virtual private network) is a private network that connects users or sites across a public network, usually the Internet. Olympic Moving can now maintain reliable, secure, and fast communications between the two locations thanks to the VPN. The VPN has effectively brought together the VA and MA offices.
Internet Technologies Tutorial (tutorialspoint.com)