Who actually puts all that information on the web?

Answer

Hi Louis,

Everyone actually does this, and that’s the great thing about the internet. In fact, some like it so much that they saw the emergence of a new kind of society in which power and knowledge come from below instead of being imposed by “on top”, but that’s a different kind of discussion.

But it is the intention of the internet that everyone can put information on it. You have a lot of options for that, but I see five major categories:

1. You buy server space from a company. Server space can be compared to a piece of hard disk on a fast computer that is permanently connected to the internet. You can then set up your own domain (eg www.lodewijkdecoster.be) and place documents on it. Those documents are then “on the web”. You do need some technical knowledge for this.
2. You create an account on a social network such as facebook, friendster, hyves, linkedin, myspace, … (See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites).
   Such a social network is managed by a (large) company and is a huge website where you can post messages, post photos, chat, find friends, play games, … without the need for technical knowledge.
3. In addition to this, you have specialized sites such as flickr.com (photos), lastfm.com (music), deviantart.com (art), … where you can save your own work and people can comment on it. Or wikipedia where people collaborate on an encyclopedia.
4. Or you can set up a blog. That is a kind of diary, which, for example, world travelers often do, and which you also find on (adventure) travel sites. Or try http://www.blogger.com : they pride themselves on being so user-friendly that anyone can set up a blog. So do it!
5. Or you can lay your eggs by responding to articles in De Standaard, Humo, …, but then you can’t really tell a coherent story and I don’t find that very interesting. That’s more for people who want to air their opinion about everything, but often don’t really have anything meaningful/constructive to say.

Certainly at points 2 to 5 people talk about web 2.0: the ‘new’ internet in which the emphasis is on the user who creates content himself and not just consumes information (see also http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2 .0)

Kind regards,