Social Bookmarking: Delicious

Image via Crunchbase

When you are reading a book and life interrupts you, a bookmark is a quick way to save your the page you were on so that you can easily come back to it later. The same concept applies to the book marks on web browsers. When you find a web page that you would like to come back to later, you can save a bookmark in your browser. But what would you do if you can't use your computer, of if you wanted to be able to access your bookmarks from any computer. This is where social bookmarking can help you.

Introduction: Twitter

Image via Wikipedia

Since 2006 Twitter has carved itself into a niche market between SMS (or text messages) and blogging, and with its ever increasing popularity has taken microbloging to new levels.

A typical blog is a website which is consistently updated and allows users to post comments and interact with content and the authors. Twitter allows users to send and receive messages from cellphones in the form of text messages or "tweets" as they are called. This means that they have only 140 characters available and even the best of ideas have to be compacted into a quick and easy blurb.

Introduction: Youtube

Image via CrunchBase

Sharing and watching videos online used to be a very difficult task. There were and still are many different programs that people used to view content. Along came Youtube, a website which converted all your videos to the Flash format. Over 96% of computers online are capable of viewing flash content. This opened to doors to sharing videos with a wider audience. It was created by three former employees of Paypal in February of 2005, and was subsequently purchased by search engine giant Google Inc. Today if you already have a Google account, which includes Gmail, then you already have access to a standard Youtube account.

Introduction: Facebook (Part 1)

Image via Wikipedia

Whether or not you like or have even used Facebook, if you've heard of it then you probably have an opinion. Some have called it revolutionary and others the best/worst way to spend an entire day. There are more than 500 million active users on Facebook, people who log on at least once every 90 days. According to the website over half of their users log in each day. With approximately 2 billion people on the internet, that's a very large portion connecting through facebook.

Let's start by taking a look at what Facebook is and does. "Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet."

Introduction: E-mail (Electronic Mail)

E-mail, or electronic mail, is method used today to send letters, pictures, and perform most correspondence on the internet. It may surprise you to know that e-mail actually predates the internet. The first "e-mail" was sent in 1965 at MIT, and required two computers to be online and connected at the same time. The message would be sent from one machine directly to another machine. Thankfully we've come a long way from the first message.

If you use the internet regularly, at some point or another you will need to get an e-mail account. An email account acts like the mailbox at your home or work. When someone wishes to send you a letter to your home, they need your home address which includes your name, city and country. Similarly, to send e-mail you need to have an e-mail address.