Online Entertainment

In the modern day and age the internet plays an almighty role in providing pleasure and entertainment for almost everyone with access to the internet. The usage of the internet for entertainment also spans across a variety of generations due to the wide range of content on the internet, and with the development of online channels such as iplayer, there is almost something for everyone readily accessible.

For many years an extremely popular use of the internet amongst particularly younger people and children  is to play online games. Due to the popularity of online gaming a wide abundance of games and gaming sites has been developed and this furthermore enables more of A variety in games thus attracting more users. It is a result of the large number of cookies online that make the gaming areas of the internet a great success, as they enable you to save and store data related to your games , so they can be continued anywhere as long as you have internet available to sign into your account. The online gaming phenomenon however does generally only remain within the younger generations and is not as appealing to older members of society, this means that although they  are very popular, they aren’t the most popular entertainment service amongst the whole internet.

A relatively new, yet highly successful service available on the internet provides you with the functionality to watch television programmes online, the two best known of these providers is the BBCs “iplayer” and channel4s “4od”. One of the key reasons for their success is that they enable their users to catch up on their favourite programmes if they miss them online. They also offer online shows , that hence the name, are only available to view online, this adds another dimension to their service, which will attract more customers willing to watch these programes in the only place they are available. I my self have had the experience of using these type of sites on countless occasions, especially “4od” as i frequently would watch some of their programmes which they saved on their site.

Another example of the internet dipping into another method of entertainment is the availability to listen to the radio online, with radio stations frequently having their own websites. The most notable of these i belive is the radio one website, probably due to the fact this radio station is aimed at younger people, and it is generally the younger generations who make up the majority of internets population. These sites however offer more than just simply a place to listen to the radio as they provide many things such as podcasts and online features such as charts and playlists, this is where the majority of radios entertainment online is discovered.

The main provider of entertainment on the internet however, i do believe is from googles website youtube. Its a site that allows user to upload videos of near enough anything for other users to watch. The genres of the videos on the site are what i belive to be the key to its success, as you have a range that includes music, to tv programes, clips saved off radio shows/podcasts and the users home videos that get uploaded. This means it has aspects from near enough every form of modern entertainment that it can utilize. The site however does come under scrutiny as a result of some of the videos that get uploaded, with the main issue being one of copyright, as many people will upload music videos ect that they do not have permission to do so. Youtube however does clearly state that if the content it is copyright they will do their best to remove it, but due to the large amount of videos on the actual site.

I believe that a large proportion of our generations entertainment is effected if not based upon the internet, which once again implies how much we are reliant upon the internet, but i do however believe that it will never be the sole provider of entertainment due to the large availability of things like television, as well as entertainment that does not require technology, such as sports ect. But despite this i do believe as power and knowledge if the internet grows and expands, the availability of entertainment online will increase.