<p> The internet's original design, guided by the end-to-end design principle, pushed all application-specific logic and complexity to the edges of the network and kept the core of the network focused on the simple task of delivering data. The original end-to-end principle, however, did not explicitly account for trust and security. There are several central points of trust and failure on the traditional internet. These include root servers for the Domain Name System (DNS) and public-key infrastructure like Certificate Authorities (CAs) that publish security certificates. Further, the success of cloud hosted services in the last decade means that most user data is stored on remote servers and end-users need to trust these remote servers for correct execution of their applications. </p><p> In this thesis, we present a new internet architecture that explicitly follows the trust-to-trust design principle, i.e., end-users don't need to trust the core of the network for anything, and end-users can use applications and services in a fully decentralized way. We make the observation that cryptocurrency blockchains, like Bitcoin, can be used to bootstrap trust for new nodes joining a network. We identify the various limitations, like high latency and limited bandwidth, of contemporary blockchains and discuss how our architecture can scale by moving most operations outside of the blockchain layer. </p><p> We detail our experience of running a large production system on top of a cryptocurrency blockchain and how that experience guided our design. We present the implementation of a new decentralized internet, called Blockstack, that takes the trust-to-trust architecture from a theoretical concept to a production system. Deploying new systems by modifying production blockchains is hard because it requires coordination and agreement from several parties. We introduce virtualchains, a virtual blockchain constructed by processing data from underlying blockchains, to enable the seamless introduction of new functionality on top of blockchains without requiring any consensus-breaking changes. Blockstack is already powering several fully decentralized applications, like OpenBazaar; it's released as open-source software and, to date, more than 70,000 domains have been registered on it.</p><p>

<p> What are the effective ways to attract international students to your campus? One approach is to learn how foreign students obtain information that impacts their college choice decision. This need determined the goal of this study to explore the Social Network Site (SNS) component of a foreign student&rsquo;s college decision-making process. This qualitative study was conducted among undergraduate students from Russia State University for Humanities (RSUH). Participant selection was made through a questionnaire aimed to identify students who were in different stages of making a decision regarding transferring to a HEI abroad. The data analysis procedure was informed by the work of Creswell (2002) and Glaser and Strauss (1967). </p><p> Participants reported that language (Russian) and convenience were among the highest motivating factors for membership in specific SNS. The benefits of SNS included opportunities for instantaneous connections with individuals of similar interests; unbiased and multidimensional views presented by SNS members. Respondents searched SNSs for information about majors, culture norms abroad, the cost of education, and careers after graduation. They were applying SNS-specific criteria, such as the number of SNS&rsquo; &ldquo;likes&rdquo;, followers, and the ratio of followers to following, to evaluate HEIs&rsquo; worthiness. One of the emerging study findings was that participants with no connections abroad relied exclusively on SNSs for their college choice decisions. These individuals acknowledged that without SNSs they would not consider an opportunity to transfer to an HEI abroad, as they had no channels for obtaining such information. For participants with connections abroad, the advice of their international contacts played a major role in their college choice and SNSs played a supportive role. </p><p> Limitations related to the use of SNS included a dearth of current research, minimal control over content posted by third parties, time constraints related to mastering SNS features and maintaining a meaningful content. Recommendations for overcoming these obstacles and strengthening HEI professionals&rsquo; connections with international students include developing fluency and expertise in different features of various SNSs or hiring individuals with proven expertise in SNS; creating consistent and meaningful content on various SNS platforms and conducting more research about the use of SNS by international students. </p><p>

<p> Privacy, in the modern connected world, has become a much discussed topic in society ranging from privacy concerns to impacts, attitudes, practices and technologies. In today&rsquo;s environment of vast social media and revelations of government spying, personal privacy is being highlighted as either non-existent or something that can be achieved to different degrees with knowledge or awareness of how our private information is collected and used. This research strives to answer the question <i>Using Alan Westin's privacy categories, what is the general awareness of privacy issues in social media and smartphone usage and how does it change when knowledge is provided over a fixed period of time?</i> A longitudinal study was conducted to collect data from 257 participants. Surprisingly, the percentages in each of the three categories: Privacy Fundamentalist, Privacy Pragmatist, and Privacy Unconcerned, are not significantly different from Westin&rsquo;s last research in 2003. However, the results show, that with knowledge of what type of private information is collected and how it is used, the category of an individual is likely to change over time.</p><p>

Mobile phone web utilisation is relatively new in South Africa, and not only does it provide more convenience to existing Internet users, but it can potentially overcome the access problems that are attendant in the utilisation of the web by most South Africans. This could go a long way to bridging the Digital Divide and contribute to South Africa’s economic growth. It is therefore important to understand the role that the South African mobile phone web utilisation cluster may play in creating national competitive advantage. This exploratory research study focuses on understanding the role of mobile phone web utilisation in creating economic growth in South Africa. It uses a combination of empirical evidence on the mobile phone web utilisation cluster, academic theory around Porter’s Diamond Model of the Micro Economics of Competitiveness, and pre-existing international and local research. The question that was considered was “Does the Mobile phone web utilisation cluster represent a source of competitive advantage for South Africa?” To support this investigation the following areas were explored; • What is the universe of the mobile phone web utilisation cluster? • Are the related and supporting industries conducive to competition? • Are firm strategies, structures and competitive rivalry conditions conducive to • competitiveness in this cluster? • Are demand conditions conducive to global and local competitive growth? • Are factor conditions conducive to competitiveness? • What is the role of Government? The research found that in most aspects, this cluster has the potential to play a role in creating competitive advantage and contributing to South Africa’s economic growth. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Start-ups face specific challenges when it comes to establishing their brand in the market. Web 2.0, the next generation of the Internet, presents both a significant opportunity and challenge for such start-ups to engage with customers online and build their brand. It is therefore the purpose of this study to examine the role that Web 2.0 plays in building the brand of the start-up. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

<p>Human trafficking affects millions every day, yet scarce research exists that evaluates communication efforts of human trafficking awareness organizations (HTAOs). HTAOs often use social media, and providing the right kind of information to audiences is important in moving publics into more active roles. Grunig?s situational theory suggests that high problem recognition, low constraint recognition, and high level of involvement lead to information seeking and active publics. The purpose of this study was to identify frames used in HTAOs? YouTube videos to determine if human trafficking messages help publics become more active. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on the most popular YouTube videos from twelve HTAOs, looking specifically for frames that fit Grunig?s variables. HTAOs? purposes for using YouTube were also analyzed and the results provided plausibility for a revised situational theory model. Discrepancies emerged between the definition and portrayal of human trafficking. Themes developed regarding the causes, consequences, and remedies of human trafficking, in addition to the portrayals of victims, perpetrators, and rescuers. HTAO public relations practitioners can use the data to revamp their human trafficking awareness campaigns, making it a point to include elements that will motivate publics to take more active roles in the organization.

La montée en popularité des réseaux sociaux sur le Web ont bousculé les modèles traditionnels de marketing établis depuis plus d'un siècle au Québec et ailleurs dans le monde. La question de qui contrôle du message est au centre des préoccupations exprimées par de nombreux experts en marketing. Comment communiquer efficacement dans un univers où les individus sont désormais des acteurs impliqués dans l'échange d'information et d'opinions sur les biens et services offerts par les entreprises? Les internautes peuvent désormais influencer l'adoption de comportements consommatoires, de même que contribuer à faire fructifier ou à anéantir les efforts de commercialisation produits par les professionnels du marketing. Cette recherche a une double visée: d'une part, découvrir l'ampleur de l'adoption des réseaux sociaux comme outils de communication et, d'autre part, anticiper les tendances lourdes en communications de marketing sur le Web au Québec.

The thesis explores the ways in which Americans on two popular social network sites, Facebook and YouTube, conceptualize the issues of crises, specifically financial, health care, and war, in the name of achieving social change and investigates the two-way flow of communication between the government and its citizens through social network sites. The thesis epistemologically feeds from the works of Thomas Hobbes' (1651) theory of government responsibility to society, William James' (1910) theory on crisis and social change, and Hannah Arendt's (1958) theory on collective action and is further guided by the theoretical frameworks of Jurgen Habermas' (1976; 1989) undistorted communication and public sphere theories and Manuel Castells' (1996; 2007) network and mass self-communication theories. Qualitative content analysis through purposive, quota, and sequential sampling of the comments posted on the White House's social media pages is conducted to gauge citizens' sentiments and conceptualizations. The findings show that Americans desire change through increased citizen participation in both politics and the community in addition to higher standards of government accountability. Social network sites contribute by providing a method to facilitate government two-way communication through an unprecedented level of speed and accessibility, which is imperative for social change to occur in the new digital age. Social media sites are conducive to social change because they allow for near-universal access despite geographic limitations, promote government accountability and transparency, and provide a public sphere-like environment for debate and conversation, all of which allow for the betterment of society and provide the method through which crises can be assuaged.

Main purpose of this thesis based on analysis, searching and synthesis of accessible sources is to describe web copywriter's role concerning content, to position copywriting into web life-cycle and to prove efficiency of copywriting by its application on specific web site. Thesis' contribution, except from outlining important -- but still unappreciated -- web copywriter's role, is to integrate web copywriting into separate phases of web development life-cycle. Practical part of thesis is beneficial as an illustrative sample of application web copywriting's principles onto existing web site. Thesis is divided into four chapters (except introduction and conclusion). In first chapter, Internet culture and its specialities concerning web copywriting are described, followed by detailed specification of principles and characteristics of web copy in terms of its structure and content construction. The second chapter is dedicated to binding web copywriting to rapidly growing marketing tool called search engine optimalization. The chapter also includes description of content and qualification aspect of SEO copywriter's role. The third chapter explains integration of web copywriting activities into web life-cycle's process model. The last chapter demonstrates on application of web copywriting onto running web site on practical example. Keywords: web copywriting, web life-cycle, SEO, web copywriter, web content

This thesis compares news web Portál ČT24 to the market leader Novinky.cz. Key part of the work is comparison of the agenda of the both news webs. The agenda itself can be considered as the main product attiring the readers. Furthermore, author identifies the aspects bringing the market leader Novinky.cz its position and enabling the most readers of all news webs available in the Czech republic. Author also analyses news web image its the basic features and the brand used for promotion of both webs. Financial analyse of Portál ČT24 has also been made to stress out financial aspect as limiting factor of the news web development. Another part of the thesis also consists from survey executed on Portál ČT24 and Novinky.cz readers. All the aspects mentioned above enter into the final set of recommendations for Portál ČT24. Its bullet points are maintaining of the current strenghts of Portál ČT24 (e.g. goodwill and brand positioning) as well as the wide range and quality of the news offered. Apart from this, author suggests fosterin promotion and specific changes in it. Those would include also management, particularly in the field of cooperation with other departements of the Czech Television. Cooperation should be simplified by introducing project management methods. Creating business plan in terms of Portál ČT24 development would lead to improvement of communication with the Czech Television management.