Web Threats And Opportunities

The Web is a channel, medium and repository of digital data that anybody and everybody can use over an Internet connection. It used to be the domain of desktop computers and later, laptops, netbooks, and notebooks. The latest high-tech additions - Apple's iPad, more generically known as the Tablet for other brands which also have smart phones as their counterpart to Apple's iPhone - promise wider use of the Internet for business, personal and other uses to meet particular requirements and address present or future needs.

There used to be a time that users ran out of disk space because of so much data that needed to be stored in company or organisational data banks. Man always proves to best himself with new discoveries and innovations all the time. The simplest answer to the storage problem was larger and faster disk storage devices - internal and external.

But then, operating systems such as Windows made parallel leaps with hardware innovations demanding bigger and bigger disk requirements. As businesses and organisations grew, more and more data piled into local disk storage devices. Next response was faster and bigger backup devices that also effectively put an end to fears relating to the eventuality and threat of data loss due to hard disk crashes. But still, it was not sufficient.

Then man moved a little bit more ahead of himself by offering Online Storage, as a business in itself or as an aid to product marketing and promotion. It offered ease of use and considerable savings especially to fledgling or struggling business enterprises. But like every other worldly thing, it had its own drawbacks. For one, users do not have complete control of the data they stored on the web. The site may go anytime as what happened to Friendster.com. Many of its former users grieved for the demise of the only copy of their digital photos stored in the website.



This served as a lesson to data-dependent users. Have control on your data storage. Do not completely leave them to other entities. Use online storage facilities only as backup or temporary repositories of your digital data. The scenario also opens a door for a complementary business opportunity for online storage facilities such as by offering monthly-charged insurance premiums against data loss, through a subsidiary firm.

Business opportunities abound especially in "places" most frequented by people - cybernetic or physical. Scanning the environment and assessing/matching your marketable personal or corporate assets, competencies and skills against it (your environment) may well bring you to personal and economic fulfilment and success you never even dreamed of.