Web development has become a growing industry since the commercialization of the web. It is a broad term used to cover all aspects such as planning, building and managing a website by conceiving, programming and populating content as well as branding, marketing and supporting a website accordingly. According to The Editors (September 2012): The Web developer's Holy Grail is to optimize user experience to drive e-commerce sales, website-content subscription purchases or online ad click-ons, whatever the primary strategic goal of a specific website.
Web developers are now able to deliver applications as web services, which were previously only available on a desk-based computer. Users are now able to create new content by interacting with online applications as opposed to running executable codes using a local computer. As a result, this has created new ways in communicating and allowing for more bandwidth to decentralize information and media distribution. In addition, users are now able to interact with applications from more than one location as opposed to using one workstation for their application environment (The Editors, September 2012).
Web development has impacted marketing and personal networking in that they are no longer used for commerce only. They allow for social networking, facilitating communication worldwide.
A growing concern in today’s society is online security given the numerous threats that circulate the globe on a daily basis. As a result, web development has taken into account security considerations including but not limited to: encryption, filtering output and data entry error as well as SQL injections, which can be implemented by the users themselves. They also help prevent scripts that can misuse websites by permitting unauthorized access to ill-intended users that attempt to gather information like passwords, email addresses and other protected content such as credit car details.
As e-commerce continues to grow, web-development will have a long-standing future in helping users apply themselves on a global platform.