ICT Btec Revision Theory Notes

Seite 1

1. communication Email, messaging,

news groups,

social networks,

conferencing, blogs,

vlogs

Talking to friends on Skype™

Using social networking

applications like Facebook

or Google+ to exchange

information

Instant responses to someone who

is remote from you, at no additional

cost to your broadband fees.

Socialising.

2. Real-time

information

Timetables, news,

sport updates,

weather reports,

travel news

Checking an airport website

for estimated arrival times of

fl ights

Provides up-to-date information when

picking people up from an airport.

Companies can use real-time

information about customers’ reactions

to an advertisement to improve the

effectiveness of the advert.

3. commerce Banking, auctions,

online sales

and purchases,

publishing

Selling something through

a service such as ebay™ or

Amazon ®

Allows users to carry out transactions

seamlessly (without the need to use

physical money) and globally.

4. Government Tax returns,

e-voting,

applications for

grants or benefi ts

Applying for your fi rst

provisional driving licence

Saves time and is more convenient

– saves you a visit to the Post Offi ce

and means can take your time fi lling

in the form and can easily amend any

5. education Online learning,

online training,

manufacturers’

online tutorials

Using the Microsoft ® training

package for Windows ® 7

Allows you to do training

from the comfort of your own

computer and at your own pace.

6. Virtual learning

environment (VLe)

VLEs such as

Moodle

Your school or college

may use a VLE for you to

access lecture notes and

assignments, and for you to

submit assignment work

Cost effective for the school/college

and allows the school/college to track

the submission of learners’ work.

7. Business

(different types

of organisations)

Business networks,

collaborative

working, video

conferencing

Using a price comparison

website is an example where

you touch on business usage

Allows you to get the best price on

purchases.

8. entertainment Multi-user games,

radio and TV players,

video streaming

Playing a game with other

people over the internet

Enhances the gaming experience by

allowing you to play against people

you may not know.

9. download

services

Music, fi lms, new

software, software

upgrades, games

Downloading music from

a service such as iTunes or

Amazon ®

Makes purchasing easier and more

affordable.

Online advertising

Online advertising uses a number of methods to promote products and services.

The most commonly used methods include:

• Search engine results pages. Companies can register with the bigger search

engines (Google™, Bing, Yahoo!) so that their websites appear high up in a list of

keyword searches or pay for links that appear when a user does a search.

• Banner and pop-up advertisements. These are advertisements that appear at the top of web pages or pop up on web pages. These are often animated to capture attention

Online advertising is becoming a very popular means of promoting products and

events, but it isn’t always effective. In order to ensure that online advertising is

effective, companies need to make sure that it:

1. Captures the attention of the target market through the use of design features

(colour, layout, graphics, animation, e.g. in banner advertisement) and is easily

accessible.

2. Retains consumers’ interest. For example, by directing consumers to additional

interactive information about a product, such as a video demonstration of a product.

The speed with which the information loads is also important to make sure that

consumers don’t lose interest.

Pay-per-click advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a form of online advertising. It involves websites or web pages hosting ads for other companies. If a surfer clicks on an ad, they will be re-directed through to the advertiser’s website. The website or web page provider will receive a payment for every ad which is clicked on.

Pay-per-click advertising uses what is known as an affiliate model. Advertisements or links to a company’s website are placed on other websites (affi liates) and in return the

affi liate site receives a percentage of the income for any customer that clicks through.

Google™ AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft

® adCenter are all big players in this field.

Compressing files

Working with online documents means that local fi les frequently need to be uploaded

for sharing, or downloaded to be used for local processing. Files may be extremely

large, which can cause problems with transmission (delivery) in terms of speed and

network usage. To reduce this problem, fi les have to be compressed (i.e. reduced in

size) before transmission and then expanded after transmission. A common method of

doing this is to convert them to zip files (.zip format).

Zip files are basically stores of data fi les which may have been compressed. There are many different

algorithms for doing the compression – with most compression

software supporting several of these. The last item in a zip fi le is an index, which shows

the placement of each of the data fi les and allows other fi les to be added. Quite often

the zip fi le will also contain some program code (a sequence of instructions) to allow

the fi les within the zip fi le to be unzipped (known as self-extracting files).

There is a wide range of software available for zipping files, with one of the most popular being WinZip

The advantages of using online software

The biggest advantage of using online document software is that you can allow many people to share a version of a document and work on it at the same time as other people (known as collaborative working). You can also access content:

• anywhere there is an available internet connection

• via different devices (e.g. PC, smartphone, tablet)

• on different operating devices (e.g. Windows ® and Mac).

ONLINE SERVICES

Online advertising

compressing files