On the Future.

We've seen this in class, but I think it's worth watching it again because it is going to be awesome when it is finally ready for public consumption.

I've always wished that the internet could be more interactive and intuitive. 6th Sense seems like a dream come true. All that information at your fingertips [literally!] anytime, anywhere!

I believe that the internet will continue to evolve and integrate itself even morefirmly into our lives years down the road. Already, we are "cranky" if we have no internet for a couple of days.

With 3D TVs hitting the stores next season and Microsoft's Project Natal an up and coming gameplay system, I believe that we are already on our way to having a 6th Sense in our daily lives. o(〃＾▽＾〃)o

On Social Networking.

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Flickr are some of the most popular social networking sites today.

Statistics have shown that there has been a great jump in the number of accounts made on social networking sites in the past 3 years.

Why the big jump in numbers?

I believe that this has to do with something that we have previously learnt from PSY101 - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Having many friends fulfills our third need - the need for love and belonging.

Having friends makes a person feel wanted and welcome in a social circle. Social websites are an extension of this feeling of belongingness as we no longer have to meet up just to fulfill that need, posting a message on someone's facebook wall or tweeting about a person you miss generates the same, if not more, gratification.

As these websites allow your friends to see how many people you have on your friendlist, people are also inclined to add more friends, even if these are people they have only met once or not at all. Having a large friendlist also adds to the amount of gratification felt.

This, in turn, fulfills the 4th tier of the model - the need for esteem.

Self-esteem is raised when you are accepted by many people. The more people likeyou, the more self-esteem you have.

Apart from this, social networking sites are also a very convenient way of keeping yourself updated on what is happening to your friends around the world. Families use these to keep in touch with oversesas members, like a child who is studying in another country.

Twitter gives you real time updates on what is going on in your friends' and families' lives.

This decreases the distance between people.

Businesses are also starting to make use of social networking sites to promote their products. Fan pages are created and people are invited to join their groups for discounts or special offers.

This is a big draw factor for people who enjoy online shopping.

Also, as pictures of new products are posted online faster than when they hit the shelves in stores, shoppers are able to view and decide on which items to get before the general public.

And for people like me, you also get to "stalk" your idols by becoming a fan of their fan pages and fan communities.

Yamapi's fan page on FB

However, all this convenience, we must not forget that these websites keep records of everything we upload so we have to careful about posting private information onto these sites. Things like your home address and phone number should not be posted even if you've put them on "private" because ultimately, you are not protecting this information from your friends, but the owner of the website and what he might do with it.

Network safely! ('-^*)/

On Journalism.

Increased IT-literacy has birthed many citizen journalists, more commonly known as bloggers. Aside from famous ones like Xiaxue and Kenny Sia, there are a far greater number of unknown "citizen journalists"... People like you and me. (^-^)/

It is easy to be a "journalist" now. All you have to do is to have a blog, or socialnetworking page like Facebook, and you're good to go. You're free to report on anything, anywhere, anytime. Your friends read what you've written, look at the pictures you've taken, and watch the videos you've made. You don't have to LEARN how to write all these stuff, you just need to have a good sense of what's most likely to interest people.

Well, you need to have a good command of the English language, of course. No matter how long or short your "piece" is, it is bound to annoy others if you can't put together a grammatically correct sentence or spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious right.

I'm kidding about the latter.

For the people who are curious about that word. =)

There are critics who are predicting the death of print journalism with the steep increase in the number of citizen journals.

However, I beg to differ.

Print journalism reaches out to people in ways that the internet cannot.

People who prefer tradition are more likely to buy a newspaper or magazine than read an article online. As these papers and magazines hire professionals to report on the news, it is definitely more reliable than the speculations of a teenager online.

Also, once you buy a magazine or newspaper, you can carry it around with you as it does not weigh much, though the latter could be a bit too bulky for reading on public transport. In contrast, digital media can only be accessed with the existence of an internet connection, which cannot be found everywhere, and thus limits the times you can catch up on the latest news.

Digital media is convenient, fast, and varied, but it doesn't mean that the rise of digital media will cause the death of print media. On the contrary, I believe that it will encourage print media to step up on efforts to bring the latest news to the people more quickly and accurately.

It all boils down to how we make use of our resources.

On Politics and the WWW.

Ah. The internet has finally gotten its grabby hands on politics.

I'm sure everyone has seen at least one or two of President Barack Obama's election videos online. Mr. Choy showed some in class, if you were paying attention. =P

While the people outside of the United States do not get to vote regardless of how they feel after watching the videos, the global support that Obama garnered in the course of campaigning was staggering. All around the world, people were rooting for him to be the next president, despite the fact that he was black.

Such is the power of the internet. It changed the way we communicate with one another. It changed the way we connect to the rest of the world. And it is starting to change politics.

Campaign videos posted online can be viewed by anybody - anywhere, anytime. The fact that what's on the net is free for viewing as many times as you like instigates people to share these videos with family and friends. This greatly increases the "area of effect" for the campaigner. It makes it all the more important to make videos with impact so as to be able to touch the hearts of the people.

Obama did it.

So can you.

On Entertainment and Multimedia.

Yes, this is a fangirl video of my favourite Japanese boy, Yamapi!!

It is commonplace now for us to be fans of artists from other countries and "stalk" them all the time. This is definitely not possible without the internet and the sheer variety of resources made available to us through it.

Remember the first blog entry? Entertainment on the internet is a good example of how Web 2.0 is being put to use. With the raging popularity of video sharing sites like YouTube, people around the globe are uploading their own videos, including *cough*illegally captured*cough* programs from their home countries, and making them available to those who are unable to watch them.

Great news for a hardcore Japanophile like me!

We are not only entertained by video streaming. As there is a vast amount of entertainment available on the internet, we can listen to podcasts, play online games, or catch up with friends on social networking sites. The possibilities are endless.

However, with this, social responsibility is needed to ensure that content including racism or religion do not get posted online. There have been cases of teenagers being arrested or fined for posting racist comments on their personal blogs.

We tend to go overboard when we receive overwhelming responses from the public, more so when we are getting responses from people overseas and anonymity via theinternet allows us to write what we like without anyone ever knowing our true identity.


We must not be blinded by what we think we see. ;D