As a public school teacher I have seen first hand the positive empowerment and engagement resulting from students’ academic use of online tools, and as an online school teacher and administrator I can mention some of the studies that show that close to 50% of U.S. public school students will attend some form of online courses by 2019. Whether we use online publishing platforms to communicate,to learn, to teach, to share advice, to shop, sell, or purchase goods, to advertise our businesses or services, or to stay in touch with family members, friends, acquaintances, or colleagues, this trend is here to stay.

Sadly, there are numerous “dubious characters” on the internet who try to disrupt sites, or make a quick buck without regard of their actions. Such individuals may promise companies instant fame on the internet by bombarding free blog and forum hosting such as ours with “keyword-rich” advertising of various business without regard of the context of the online community they’re spamming. Wikipedia has some helpful information about spam and splogs as well (click on the links to access this).