bring people together who would otherwise never meet. But the impersonality of the Internet changes the meeting to something less personal. According to Media Matrix, as recently as 1996, education sites dominated the top 15 list of most visited sites. The top 15 that year included no e-commerce sites. Today, nearly all of the top web-site destinations offer content, communications, community, and commerce. The growing of e-commerce should cause all businesses to make sure that their etiquette is in line with rules of netiquette. The basic rule of netiquette is to show consideration for the other party, to remember they are human. When communicating electronically, all you see is a computer screen. You dont have the opportunity to use facial expressions, gestures, and the tone of your voice to communicate your meaning: words are all that you have. It is easy to forget your correspondents meaning and easy to forget that your correspondent is a person with feelings like your own.There are some basic principles that are known as netiquette. One of the first is to identify yourself. Nobody would ever send a letter or a voicemail without identifying themselves. Yet people sometimes forget to include some personal information about themselves, such as a name, phone number, e-mail address, or memorable quote. It is not good netiquette for your respondent to have to ask if you are male or female, if you are an individual or corporation, or if you just use your initials. Not identifying yourself defeats the whole purpose of time saving that the Internet allows the user to have, since the sender will unlikely get a reply with the information they want the first time.In line with proper netiquette is the use of capital letters. A person should never type in all capital letters. This is considered shouting or screaming online. This should be reserved for words you may want to emphasis or stress. It is physically har...
