Ah yes...Social Networking....

The internet is truly a powerful tool as a networking medium. To elaborate a little, I am what you might call a hermit, if I have no reason to, I simple see no reason to leave the comfort of my home. Yet, despite my reclusive nature, I never fail to surprise my friends that I am aware of the happening in their lives or that we know mutual friends whom we have never introduced to each other. The secret? Why, Social Networking of course! Now I am guessing everyone has a Facebook account...well not EVERYONE, I do know a few who do not go on Facebook but the point is that Facebook on its own has many users of whom are friends with one another.



Now I recall back when I was doing SOC101, on social relations, we went on the topic of the 6 degrees of separation. It means that people actually have friends who knows people from other parts of the world within up to 6 different circle of friends. Now I am a proponent of this idea on a micro-level and its because I have found many friends on social media through mutual friends. It is through Facebook as a medium where my friends post their status updates that I keep myself up to date to the happenings in my friend's lives. While it may not always be the best platform to remain connected as there is still a barrier between us and the person, it still allows us to get a gist of what is happening.

I have been on Facebook coming what...5yrs now? I still think that it will be a strong platform for the next few years and till then, I will continue stalking you on Facebook......Beware......

The Social Media

Social Media, we all know what it is and the first thing that comes to mind is Facebook. Like the rest of the crowd, I follow Facebook regularly or as some of us would put it, I am your resident stalker. Jokes aside though, I am not exactly your idea of a tech savvy kind of guy. Of note, there is twitter...What in blue blazes is twitter? Many people I know go on about how good twitter is and all but I had no idea of its existence. So, as the saying goes, curiosity kills the cat, though I did not die but I decided to check up on twitter.

At first glance, it looks like twitter is just a simplified version of Facebook, without all that fancy stuff like links and advertisements. The first thing that caught my eye was probably this:

A bird!? Seriously!? I guess that is why its called twitter. However what makes it really stand out though is the ability to easily follow a friend or associate's posts. In my point of view, it appears to be a rather blog with on the spur of the moment updates. Definitely not something I will use as I usually keep my thoughts to myself and do not see a need to babble everything I feel. However, I understand why it appeals to others. It allows people to feel that they are being heard, and that is not a bad thing at all.

Speaking of social networks, it can also be linked to what we call web 2.0. Basically, in web 1.0, all we as users can do is retrieve data that is found on the net. With the emergence of 2.0, we can do more than that, we can also contribute our own data up to the virtual storage for other users to retrieve. In short, we have the freedom of contribution bestowed upon us.

However, as with all things, with the pros, comes the cons... namely, spamming by immature people who assume they have the knowledge and authority to contribute.

I'm sure it is easy to see how web 2.0 is linked to the rise of social networking. With the ability to upload information as well retrieve it, there is an exchange of communication between boundaries and therefore, fits the goals of social networking.

As time moves on, the next thing coming up in the web is 3.0, which many believe that the web will be more independent and instead of focusing on the keywords typed by the user, it will try to infer from past information and display information based on the user's preferences instead.

Youtube itself seems to be trying to implement web 3.0 in to its interface. Evidence? Well...

Here's your evidence! And that ends this session! Till next time!

The Internet

Ok, if you are reading this blog, then you’d probably be the same as me, a student in the midst of his or her studies in the module on the internet. If you are not, then.........What the Hell are you doing here!? ..............Just kidding! But seriously, if you are interested, carry on.

In a nutshell, this blog is dedicated to solely my reflections on what I have learnt so far in the module. Specifically, something new about the internet I had no knowledge about. For starters, some statistics on a day on the internet, blogposts that are posted, the number of people visiting facebook, emails sent, these all number in the millions. Ok, that is nothing new but just looking at the numbers, makes me go ‘wow’ nonetheless.

Moving on to the subject of the internet, I always thought of the internet as a vast collection of information stored in some virtual library. While I am not entirely wrong, it appears that the internet is also a gateway to connect us to other people in one intricate network. People call the internet the Web. I used to follow suite just because it’s a common word...but after hearing this new definition of the internet and putting a little thought into it, I realised how apt it is.

Imagine this, the centre of a spider’s web is the virtual storage that I mentioned earlier and the intersections of the web that expands from the centre represents individual computers located all around the globe. Each line is a connection from computer to computer and it shows that there are many ways for the connection and information to be passed down. As we scale down further, the internet refers to a network on a global scale but in the case of a network comprising solely of computers within an organization that is not connected to the outside, we use the term intranet.

One of the main reasons for such a closed network is to prevent important information from flowing out. So I believe that most people know the great advantages of the internet, but how many know its history? I didn’t, and while I am no fan of history, it is a fancy bit of information to keep in mind. For starters, the internet began as a small idea, who knew that it would grow to such a size?

Abandon your posts! Flee! Flee for your lives! A monster is on the loose! So calling the internet a monster is kind of exaggerating but looking its history, it sure has the growth rate of a monster. I won’t bore you with the technical terms but the Internet started with ARPANET which started really small by connecting only 3 networks together. Later, it was changed to the Internet that we know today and its growth from just 3 networks to over 50,000 networks this day is nothing short of monstrous.

In fact, many people use the internet for communication these days. One of the more prominent form is teleconferencing or in a more familiar context, talking face to face on the web. Nowadays, with voice recognition as part of voice technology, using your voice to transfer funds or even paying the bills have been made possible. In time, bankers are going to lose their jobs due to this. Next up is the IP address. It is also known as a host number unique to one computer to differentiate it from another.

This I can understand, it’s akin to a fingerprint or something. So in terms of the number, its actually strings of 32bits. For the layman, its basically a whole bunch of numbers that when converted, becomes a string of 0s and 1s. Think the matrix, its the best example off the shelf. Now, it does not make sense for people to simply remember a random string of numbers right? So we have the host name which we type in to browse the net. The computer will then link the host name to the IP address by itself and open the page up for us. So then, there is the URL – Uniform Resource Locator, which is a form of address that we type that specifies the location of a certain object or page in a website.

Well that’s all have for this post. Till next time!