Category The World Around us

WHY DO COMPANIES ADVERTISE?

Companies use all forms of media to advertise their products and services. advertising began simply as a way of telling people about a product, but it is now much more sophisticated. It is used to present the image of a company in a certain way and also to target a particular audience that the company feels it can attract. In this way, the company associates itself with a certain lifestyle. Advertising is a huge business, with large companies investing huge sums of money in anything from sports sponsorship to putting their logo on the side of a milk carton.

Companies use advertisements as part of a marketing program to increase sales of their products and services. Advertising plays a different role at different stages of the marketing process — helping to raise awareness of a product or service, generating leads for a sales force or selling directly. Companies with retail outlets use advertising to make consumers aware of product availability and increase sales through the outlets.

Awareness

Companies use advertising to make customers and prospects aware of the features and benefits of their products. If customers are not aware of your product, they will not consider it when they next make a purchasing decision for the type of product you offer. Advertising puts your product into the consumer’s set of choices.

Brand Preference

Advertising can build a preference for your product over competitors’ offerings. Your advertising messages must reflect the information that customers feel is important when choosing a product. It must also stress the quality of your product. By advertising regularly, you can reinforce the brand messages so that your product becomes first choice when the consumer next makes a purchase.

Direct Sales

Use direct response advertising to sell products directly to customers. The advertisement includes details of the product and its price together with a telephone number or website address where customers can order the product.

Retail Development

Advertising details of retailers or distributors that stock your products builds sales by driving traffic to the outlets. The advertisements can provide information on retail outlets or promote special offers available at those outlets. This type of advertising can also help you promote your products to distributors and retailers.

Lead Generation

If you market products and services through a sales force, you can use advertisements to generate leads for the team to follow up. Include a response mechanism in the advertisement such as a reply coupon, telephone number or email address so that customers can register their details in return for an incentive offer. Examples of incentives include free copies of special reports for business customers or gifts for consumers.

Reputation

When a prospect is selecting a supplier for a major purchase, company reputation is an important factor in the decision. Use advertising to build a positive perception of your company. Reputation or corporate advertising communicates messages about factors such as your company’s achievements, financial stability, market success and innovation record.

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WHAT IS MASS MEDIA?

Certain forms of media, particularly television and newspapers, are able to communicate to thousands or even millions of people at the same time. These mass media can have a very powerful influence on their audience, and often reflect the particular view-point of the media-owner.

Think about this for a second: whenever you want to hear your favorite song, watch your favorite show, or see the latest current events, where do you go? You more than likely turn on your television, radio, or computer. The source that the majority of the general public uses to get their news and information from is considered mass media.

Mass media means technology that is intended to reach a mass audience. It is the primary means of communication used to reach the vast majority of the general public. The most common platforms for mass media are newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. The general public typically relies on the mass media to provide information regarding political issues, social issues, entertainment, and news in pop culture.

The mass media has evolved significantly over time. Have you ever wondered how the latest news and information was communicated in the past? Well, before there was the Internet, television, or the radio, there was the newspaper. The newspaper was the original platform for mass media. For a long period of time, the public relied on writers and journalists for the local newspapers to provide them with the latest news in current events.

Centuries later, in the 1890s, came the invention of the radio. The radio would soon supersede the newspaper as the most pertinent source for mass media. Families would gather around the radio and listen to their favorite radio station programs to hear the latest news regarding politics, social issues, and entertainment.

Later on down the line came the invention of the television. The television would soon replace the radio for the most effective platform to reach the general public. Today, the Internet is the most relevant form of mass media and has become a major tool for news outlets. Since the evolution of the Internet, the general public is now able to access those same news outlets in an instant with just a click of a mouse, instead of having to wait for scheduled programs.

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WHAT WERE THE EARLIEST FORMS OF COMMUNICATION?

Early people probably communicated through a combination of primitive sounds and basic sign language. Languages may have evolved through a need for survival — warning others of danger, for instance. They developed gradually as people used the spoken word for instruction and entertainment. Oral communication, particularly through story-telling, was and still is an important part of a society’s culture.

Making sounds such as grunting or guttural sounds at a low pitch or high pitch would indicate either social communication or be a warning sign. Body language was also used as communication at this time.  Later written communication came about when humans realised the need to record their daily life activities. Further down the line this progressed to meeting the needs of bartering and exchanging of goods. The ancient Egyptians were amongst the first people to use symbols as a form of written communication which later developed into the alphabet system that we know today. 

Cave drawings were murals that people painted onto the walls of caves and canyons to tell the story of their culture.  They would tell stories of battles, hunts and culture. Storytelling was used to tell stories, both fiction and nonfiction, before there were books.  It was a way for families and communities to pass on information about their past.

Drums were one way to send signals to neighbouring tribes and groups.  The sound of the drumming patterns would tell them of concerns and events they needed to know. Smoke signals were another way to send messages to people who were not close enough to use words with.  Can you imagine living without your telephone?  We sure have come a long way!

For many years it was widely believed that the only reliable form of knowledge was the written word. Books, diaries, documents, and newspapers.These commanded respect because their words could be preserved. But the printed word can be misleading. For example, certain history books taught, inaccurately, that Africans arrived in Southern Africa at more or less the same time as European settlers landed in the Cape. Some books emphasised differences amongst people. And while most textbooks acknowledged that the Khoisan had lived in South Africa for a very long time, the writers saw them as ‘primitive’, and paid very little respect to their history.

When European settlers arrived in South Africa, most of them could read and write. They valued the written word as a precious form of knowledge. But European scholars made the mistake of thinking that writing was the only way that knowledge could be passed on. Where they did not find books in Africa, they simply assumed that Africa had no history.

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HOW IS INFORMATION SENT AROUND THE WORLD?

In the modem world, we can access information in ways that could only be dreamt about just 50 years ago. Information can travel around the world via television, radio, telephone and computer networks, all of them connected by satellite or cable links. Modern communication systems, or media, allow almost anyone to transmit and receive verbal, visual and written information wherever they are in the world.

Optical communications networks provide the underlying high-capacity, ubiquitous connectivity that underpins the global Internet Characterizes the growth of communication and computing between 1986 and 2007, based on a broad collection of data. Around the year 2000, Internet traffic took over from voice telephone as the single largest communication format for information. Now Internet traffic dominates completely. All of the long-distance communications on the Internet are over optical fiber.

Major advances in transmission techniques and technologies have allowed network providers to provide extremely cost-effective network upgrades that have kept pace with the extraordinary appetite for broadband Internet services. That growth, as exemplified in has driven network bandwidth demands by a factor of 100 over the last 10 years. That increase has been enabled by realizing the full potential of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) that has resulted in fibers carrying as many as 100 separate wavelengths. In addition, the capacity per wavelength in commercially deployed terrestrial networks has increased from a maximum of 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s) per wavelength when the first edition of Harnessing Light was published in 1998, to 100 Gb/s today. As a result, per fiber transmission capacities in terrestrial systems today as high as 5-10 terabits per second (Tb/s) are possible. Transoceanic capacities have lagged somewhat behind terrestrial values because the long amplifier-only distances and the desire to extend the amplifier spacing have made upgrading to per wavelength capacities above 10 Gb/s problematic. Nevertheless, transoceanic per fiber capacities of approximately 1 Tb/s are typical. For the future there are expectations that this growth will continue as more video content calls for bandwidth and that there is a need for another factor-of-100 growth in the coming 10 years as well.

Major advances have also been achieved in both cost-effectively managing the large capacity in today’s WDM optical networks and in leveraging the value proposition of optical amplifiers to provide multi-wavelength amplification over network mesh and ring architectures. Reconfigurable, wavelength-routed networks—in which wavelength-defined units of capacity can be added, dropped, or switched from one fiber route to another fiber route directly in the optical domain without the need for conversion to electronics—are now heavily deployed in long-haul terrestrial networks as well as metropolitan networks. Wavelength-routed networks provide cost-effective solutions because they allow data on wavelengths passing through a node at a multi-route network node to remain in the optical domain and benefit from the cost-effective multi-wavelength amplification enabled by optical amplifiers, rather than needing to be individually electronically regenerated. The large increase in capacity demand has ensured that a prerequisite for the economic viability of such networks—namely, that the capacity demand between any two node pairs on the network be at least as large as that which can be carried by a single wavelength—is met.

WDM optical networks require reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) to, under network electrical control, drop or add wavelength channels at a node and to switch wavelength channels from one fiber route to another. ROADMs are key enablers that have evolved significantly in their functionality, providing increasing levels of flexibility, and in their capacity, or number of fiber ports and wavelengths per fiber, over the last decade. Further progress in these network elements and their enabling technologies will be essential to addressing the growing demand for capacity.

Ultimately, networks are no better than the access capacity that they provide to the end user, whether that customer is a business or a residence. Increasingly that access is through an optical link. The last decade has seen significant increase in the deployment of fiber in the access network, initially to the curb, but increasingly also directly to the business or home.

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HOW ARE TUNNELS BUILT?

Tunnels are built for many different reasons, such as carrying water and sewage beneath cities and providing access for people, trains and motor vehicles. “Cut-and-cover” is a common method of building tunnels in urban areas — a deep trench will be dug and then covered over. Long transport tunnels, which may go through mountain-sides or underwater, are usually made with enormous boring machines. As a rotating cutting head cuts out rock at the front of the machine, sections of tunnel-lining are fitted in behind. Two machines will often he used, one starting at each end.

A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through the surrounding soil/earth/rock and enclosed except for entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube construction techniques rather than traditional tunnel boring methods.

A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. The central portions of a rapid transit network are usually in the tunnel. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers. Utility tunnels are used for routing steam, chilled water, electrical power or telecommunication cables, as well as connecting buildings for convenient passage of people and equipment.

Secret tunnels are built for military purposes, or by civilians for smuggling of weapons, contraband, or people. Special tunnels, such as wildlife crossings, are built to allow wildlife to cross human-made barriers safely. Tunnels can be connected together in tunnel networks.

A tunnel is relatively long and narrow; the length is often much greater than twice the diameter, although similar shorter excavations can be constructed, such as cross passages between tunnels.

The definition of what constitutes a tunnel can vary widely from source to source. For example, the definition of a road tunnel in the United Kingdom is defined as “a subsurface highway structure enclosed for a length of 150 metres (490 ft) or more.” In the United States, the NEPA definition of a tunnel is “An underground structure with a design length greater than 23 m (75 ft) and a diameter greater than 1,800 millimetres (5.9 ft).”

In the UK, a pedestrian, cycle or animal tunnel beneath a road or railway is called a subway, while an underground railway system is differently named in different cities, the “Underground” or the “Tube” in Londan, the “Subway” in Glasgow, and the “Metro” in Newcastle. The place where a road, railway, canal or watercourse passes under a footpath, cycleway, or another road or railway is most commonly called a bridge or, if passing under a canal, an aqueduct. Where it is important to stress that it is passing underneath, it may be called an underpass, though the official term when passing under a railway is an underbridge. A longer underpass containing a road, canal or railway is normally called a “tunnel”, whether or not it passes under another item of infrastructure. An underpass of any length under a river is also usually called a “tunnel”, whatever mode of transport it is for.

In the US, the term “subway” means an underground rapid transit system, and the term pedestrian underpass is used for a passage beneath a barrier. Rail station platforms may be connected by pedestrian tunnels or footbridges.

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HOW DOES A SKYSCRAPER STAY UP?

Skyscrapers very tall buildings are a familiar sight in many of the world’s large cities. Ordinary buildings are constructed in such a way that the walls provide support for the whole structure. A skyscraper is so tall, and the weight of the building is so great, that a frame of steel or concrete is needed to support it. The foundations of the skyscraper are also important. Beams (piles), also made of steel or concrete, and are driven into the ground with a powerful machine called a pile-driver.

A skyscraper is a continuously habitable high-rise building that has over 40 floors and is taller than approximately 150 m (492 ft.). Historically, the term first referred to buildings with 10 to 20 floors in the 1880s. The definition shifted with advancing construction technology during the 20th century. Skyscrapers may host offices, residential spaces, and retail spaces. For buildings above a height of 300 m (984 ft), the term supertall skyscrapers can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m (1,969 ft) are classified as megatall skyscrapers.

One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls. These curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete.

Modern skyscrapers’ walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterised by large surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames and curtain walls. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a small surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a tubular structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic, and other lateral loads. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, which in some cases is also structurally required.

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