FTP sites around the world offer a vast collection of software, documents, pictures, databases and other files. The estimated 100 million users on the Internet have at their fingertips thousands of discussion groups in practically any area of interest. These discussion groups bring together people with common interests to exchange ideas, questions, answers, experiences and comments. Choose your topics of interest, then visit these groups regularly to read the discussions and contribute your own two cents' worth. Early chat tools allowed users to interact only by typing and reading.
More recent tools enhance the experience with audio and video interaction as well.
The Internet brings geographically distant people closer together. People work together on tasks simultaneously via the Internet, even from different buildings, different cities or different countries. This allows organisations to graft Internet tools on to their existing internal systems, allowing access to users on the outside. Users outside the organisation access these internal systems with familiar Internet tools, such as e-mail software or a Web browser. Internet software, with its wide user base, is put through its paces thoroughly, highly reliable, and has better documentation, independent support and available expertise.