This is a little known fact technological about the Internet, but the — Internet

"When education, banking and healthcare are online, and huge groups cant leverage these tools, the people who struggle most are struggling harder."

"Considering that the internet has greatly increased our access to unreliable information, and that bullshit still passes through more traditional channels such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and face-to-face conversations, it seems reasonable to suggest that people today are inundated with more bullshit now than ever before. The internet has ushered in the Age of Bullshit."

"The index of a search engine can be thought of as analogous to the stars in sky. What we see has never existed, as the light has traveled different distances to reach our eye. Similarly, Web pages referenced in an index were also explored at different dates and they may not exist any more."

"NPRs coverage of the post-web era describes a "great online awakening" driven by an explosion in the number of internet-connected people. "The result is more chaos than you can imagine and literally thousands and thousands of websites," Rich Dean reported for NPR in 1996. By the end of 1995, more than 24 million people in the U.S. and Canada alone spent an average of 5 hours per week on the internet."

"Today, almost everyone is talking about the Internet as the ultimate medium of business. And so now we find ourselves in 1999 taking an equally unconventional position: Today its clear to us that the greatest value being created by this networking technology is not in these new "dot-com" Internet companies that a lot of people seem to believe are going to redefine the world of retail, of Wall Street, of the media industry, and gobble up everyones business. These are interesting companies, and maybe one or two of them will be profitable someday. But I think of them as fireflies before the storm all stirred up, throwing off sparks. But the storm thats arriving -- the real disturbance in the force -- is when the thousands and thousands of institutions that exist today seize the power of this global computing and communications infrastructure and use it to transform themselves. Thats the real revolution. ...Right now, theres a lot of focus on e-commerce -- on Net-based buying and selling. But we think that equally important, if not more important, are the staggering investments our customers are starting to make in what we call "e-business." E-business includes e-commerce, of course. But its about a broader set of transactions and important applications that will go to the Net in supply chain, in customer care, in e-service; and internally in applications from product development to logistics to employee training to knowledge management inside enterprises. In fact, our view is that the Web enabling of these core business process will deliver returns on investments that will equal or exceed the returns on investments coming from e-commerce."

"In terms of communicating social support, Burleson and Goldsmith (1998) argue that the type of conversational environment most conducive to effective comforting requires reducing the distressed others self-presentational anxiety. Caplan and Turner (in press) propose that establishing such an environment might be easier and more effective if the conversation is computer-mediated. They further assert that computer-mediated social support interactions might be especially helpful at creating a conversational context that is less socially risky than its FtF counterpart. For example, Walther and Boyd (2002) contend that computer mediated discussions of stigmatized topics are likely to be perceived as less threatening than their FtF counterparts due to their increased anonymity and increased social distance, which facilitate better stigma management. These findings that reflect how CMC social support affords its users reduced social stigma and increased anonymity were further validated by other similar studies (Gustafson et al., 19999; McKenna & Bargh, 1998; White & Dorman, 2001; Wright, 2002). Online health applications are discussed further in chapter 12 by Whitten (this volume). Caplan and Turner (in press) also point out that computer-mediated emotional support allows support seekers who have limited mobility to participate in groups that they would be less willing, if at all able, to attend if offered in an FtF format (Braithwaite, Waldron, & Finn., 1999; White & Dorman, 2001; Wright, 2002). Along a similar line, online conversation partners are not bound by proximity and geographical barriers; individuals can communicate with a seemingly limitless number of diverse people who would be difficult or impossible to locate in most FtF cases (Barrera, Glasgow, McKay, Boles, & Feil, 2002; Braithwaite et al., 1999; Finfgeld, 2000; Finn, 1999; Sharf, 1997; Walther & Boyd, 2002; White & Dorman, 2001; Wizelberg, 1997; Wright, 2002)."