Future of the Internet

I've learned so much about the internet through this module: the history of the internet, how the internet can be used for businesses, how the internet can be used for information searching, help people shape communities, and even aid politicians in their campaigns.

Similarly, the internet is like a double bladed sword; with pros, there will definitely be cons as well. Due to the high number of viruses, worms and other malicious software created by hackers online, internet security is very much a necessity. The loss of personal information and even identity have both become very real problems since the birth of the internet. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace has allowed us to create relations and communities - at the risk of putting up too much personal information of ourselves. Such information can be kept indefinitely by Facebook, until they wish to eliminate it themselves. On Google, whenever you make a search, your IP address, the time, and what you search is store in their database forever. Such information can then be used in a court of law against you. (http://hackerslife.blogspot.com/2007/08/documentary-about-dangers-of-google.html)

What does the future of the internet hold for us?

1) Globalism

Sharing of information and knowledge will come at a lower cost as time goes by. People will become more knowledgeable and smarter, and be more aware of the things that is happening around us. The world can soon become a global village - where everyone in the world is a citizen, and international relations can improve. On the other hand, this could lead to a loss of culture in countries, as we get more and more integrated with each other.

2) Virtual Reality

As 3d graphics become more sophisticated, virtual reality interfaces will also become more realistic. This technology will be applied in many ways, such as gaming, advertising, and even for home use. People can feel like they're meeting each other in person, even though they could be miles, or countries apart.

3) Communities

The internet can unite communities, and can be used for communication within communities and even across countries. Communities can be organised in virtual space, and make use of tools such as newsgroups, websites and mailing lists. Towns and cities can be more organised and empowered at the neighborhood level. Isolated individuals can also be brought together through similar interests, hobbies and political ideas.

4) Integration

The internet could integrate with other technologies, such as phones, television, refrigerators, ovens, and perhaps even the common table. Perhaps one day, when our refrigerator is out of food, it can automatically order our food from online. People could be able to access the internet easily with anything, from anywhere. The internet will truly be portable and easily accessible.

Social Networking Sites

A social network website is about building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people. It usually consists of a representation of each user, such as a profile, his/her social links, and additional services. Most social network services are web based and provide means for users to interact over the internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Social networking sites are hugely popular these days, such as Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 and Friendster.

Being such a popular phenomenon, social networking sites are a goldmine of information for companies.

1. Social networking sites are very good place to set up profiles, as they are a great way of communicating with your target audience (for example, in Facebook, people could "become a fan" of a public profile, and keep up with all the relevant news of that organisation). Organisations can interact with their target audience, get feedback from them, find out about their needs and wants, and release important information about themselves, so that people will find out more about them. Such a tactic could build awareness about the organisation, and even customer loyalty if done right.
2. Despite the apparent danger about releasing too much information about yourself on social networking sites, some organisations have relied on looking for potential talent on social networking sites. “If we were going to attract the candidates with the skill sets we wanted, they had to be active within social media before they even came on,” says partner and co-founder Jason Throckmorton of LaunchSquad, a San Francisco PR firm working with freshly minted startups. (http://www.bnet.com/2403-13070_23-219914.html)
3. Many people post factual, and some even rather personal, information about themselves on the websites. Such information can be used for marketing purposes so that organisations can better frame their ads to appeal better to their target audience. Organisations could also also post such ads on the social networking sites themselves.
   
4. Entrepreneurs and small business who are just starting out, can expand their contact bases through social networking sites, as social networking sites can be used at little or no cost at all.
   

Internet and Journalism

Journalism is the profession of reporting, photographing or editing news stories for the media. Due to the rise of the internet, journalists have been losing their monopoly on news, either locally or internationally. With social networking sites like Twitter, Youtube and Facebook, news can now be reported by mere citizens such as you and I, as long as they own any sort of internet access. This phenomenon is known as citizen journalism, which is getting increasingly prevalent in this time and age.

Why has citizen journalism become so popular?

Firstly, news from citizen journalism are often objective without much bias. As most citizens are not working for any organisation, or receiving any pay for their work, their news are more believable than news from mainstream media, which sometimes have to practice self-censorship in order to be able to make a profit, or to conform to certain rules imposed by the government. Especially in war-torn countries, citizen journalists could report on the real carnage caused by war.

Secondly, news from citizen journalism are posted quickly and almost instantaneously; one often do not need to wait for up to a day for an article to be released by a citizen journalist. The spread of such news are further aided by websites such as Twitter.

Due to such circumstances, it is inevitable that many journalists have lost their jobs. However, is citizen journalism to be feared by mainstream news? In order to cope with such a development, many news site has created a place just for citizens to post their articles. For example, in Singapore, the Straits Times has created a website called "STOMP", where people can sign in and upload photos and write articles about what they have seen happen around the country.

Instead of overthrowing mainstream media, citizen journalism will complement mainstream news, and even aid them by being reliable sources of information. Just like how the internet has not taken over more traditional media such as newspapers and magazines, mainstream news will be here to stay, and might even publish more accurate and ethical journalism as a result.

Internet and Politics: Apathy amongst teens and young adults

It is often said that young adults and teens are generally apathetic towards politics. Truly, most of us cannot be bothered about the ongoings of our local politics (speaking from personal experience, being a young adult now). In order to understand why this is so, allow me to briefly talk about politics, and political power. Some people have more political power than others, and it is important to see how this affects the mindset of many young adults and teens.

To summarize, politics are the activities and social relations involving authority or power of government and organizations. Political powers come from three sources: legitimate power (the power given to an individual by a recognised authority to enforce standards of behaviour), referent power (the power bestowed upon individuals by virtue of accomplishment or attitude), and expert power (the power that comes from education or experience).

This is a model of an individual's political power, and his concerns. As one can see, the individual's circle of concern is much bigger than his or her circle of influence, meaning that the individual is unable to involve himself in every aspect of his concern. For example, a poor man living in a small countryside could be concerned about the plight of a Burmese's poor living condition, but could not do anything about it because he could not influence many people to do something about it.

Naturally, this model applies to young adults and teens as well:

1. Their circle of influence is too small as compared to their circle of concern, leaving many teens and young adults feeling cynical and inadequate. A young adult could feel strongly for an political issue, either local or overseas, but his or her lack of power (or perceived lack of power) to act on it, to help improve the situation, can make him or her feel drained. Instead, he or she might choose to remain apathetic, since there is "no point to worrying and thinking about it".
2. Their circle of concern is too small. Young adults and teens could be simply unaware of political issues happening around, due to lack of emphasis placed in political awareness in the country, or that they are just brought up to "mind their own business". Sometimes, the local media frames political news as trivial, and that everything in the country is "perfectly fine". Inaccessibility of alternate news sources contributes to this idea that nothing else needs to be done to help improve the situation.
3. Culture: Some young adults and teens can be brought up to respect authority. This is especially prevalent in Asian countries, where they are told not to question authority, perhaps due to a culture of fear (i.e.: if you tell on the government, you and your family will be in trouble), or just plain respect for people in power, such as teachers, policemen and politicians.
4. Some young adults and teens are simply bored by the going ons of the political world, seeing politics as something that is "boring", or not essential to their general wellbeing.

Apathy might not seem like such a good thing, for more often than not, politics have always affected all our lives in one way or another. In some places, lack of political awareness is often promoted indirectly, by the ruling government, so that citizens would not be able to think critically about their environment they live in. This is a dangerous situation to be in. Harnessing the power of the Internet, almost everyone would have a certain measure of power, and increase their circle of concern from greater awareness, and increase their circle of influence as well.

Multimedia

Multimedia is a computer-based interactive communications process that incorporates text, graphics, sound, animation, and video. Its interactivity is a key feature of multimedia, in which the user determines what content is delivered, when and how it is delivered. Instead of me rambling on what I think multimedia is like, I'll give an example of a marketing communication, namely how the song, "We Are the World 25 for Haiti", is to be marketed.

This is a cover of a song that Lionel Richie and the late Michael Jackson wrote together about 25 years ago, and proceeds from this song will go to helping Haiti out during their time of distress. People can purchase the songs from iTunes at $1.99, and on Youtube, viewers are encouraged to post a video response to this song, singing the chorus. On top of this, other videos related to this making of the single are shown next to the video. A website is also set up so that people can find out more about the song, how else they can help Haiti during this terrible disaster, join the mailing list, and help spread the world about the song online through social networking sites such as Facebook.

Such a marketing promotion is very engaging, as it involves the audience. The viewers can also choose to see what videos they want to watch, at their own convenience, and even leave behind feedback via the Youtube comments.

Internet Security

I would like to take the time to thank those who has been religiously following my blog. Thank you, Mr Choy...you're probably the only one.

I admit, my posts have been less than fascinating, but please bear with me as I go through this post about internet security, with more thoughts of my own.

I've admittedly been rather intrigued about internet security for some time. There are so many things plaguing the internet - computer viruses, worms, trojan, spyware...people has even tried to steal other people's identities through phishing. Yes, stealing others' identities! The horror.

What's the difference between all those horrible things? Let me attempt to enlighten you, my gentle reader(s):

1) Computer virus: It is a piece of programming code that is secretly introduced into a system in order to corrupt it, or to destroy data. It is able to generate copies of itself, and therefore, spread throughout the computer system. It is very destructive. It spreads by attaching itself to a normal programme file, and will only be executed or propagated when the user takes action.

2) Computer worm: Worms are self-propagating computer viruses. It can replicate itself over a a computer network and usually performs malicious actions, such as using up the computer's resources and shutting the system down. Their impact is very similar to comptuer viruses. They can transmit themselves through a network by exploiting security loopholes, as opposed to viruses which needs a "host".

3) Trojan: It is a destructive programme that masquerades as a benign application. Although it cannot replicate itself, it is just as destructive. One of the most insidious types of Trojan is a programme that claims to rid your computer of viruses, but instead introduces more viruses onto your computer.

4) Phishing: A form of internet fraud that aims to steal valuable information such as credit cards, social security numbers, user IDs, passwords....and many others. It can come in a form of a fake website that tricks you into keying in important information.

Thankfully, just like in real life, there are always the "good guys" to combat the "bad guys" - in this case, the "good guys" are the anti-virus programmes - but be careful, some anti-virus programmes can be a Trojan, so remember to choose only reputable ones to protect your computer!

Sadly, that's not all. Equally vicious cybercriminals, such as hackers, can attempt to hack into your computer. Hacking is known as the unauthorized use, or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network. One such method to gain access to your information, is the use of spyware. Spyware is a software that tracks your actions and/or your internet use. It can capture what you type, including passwords, and send it to the spyware creator.

Therefore, investing in the security of your computer really goes a long way. Why save a bit of money, when you can easily protect your computer (and possibly your life!) with reputable anti-virus programmes, such as AVAST!, Norton anti-virus, and Kaspersky? If you are not sure if a certain anti-virus programme is truly reliable, or is just another Trojan created by a malicious cybercriminal, simply do a search online. It is as simple as that.

Google

Google Inc. is a multinational public cloud computing and Internet search technologies corporation. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products such as doing blog searches, image searches, news searches, searching for scholarly papers, and of course, doing web searches. Other products and services offered are Google Chrome, a browser which is supposedly built for speed, stability and security; Google Docs, which allows the user to create and share online documents, presentation and spreadsheets with other users; Google Groups, which allow users to have their own discussions, and Google Maps, amongst many others. As stated from their website, Google's mission is to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

For today's entry, I'm going to talk about one of Google's latest services: the Google Buzz.

Google Buzz is a social networking service, much like Friendster and Facebook. Members of the site can share photos, videos and links. Similar to Facebook, members can also update their friends with a status update, and leave comments in friends' profile. It also adds friends already in your Gmail address book, since the website is integrated with Google's email programme. Google Buzz also allows the user to connect their Google Buzz website with other sites, such as Twitter or Flickr, so that their updates from those sites, can be seen on Google Buzz by their friends as well. Comments from friends is sent directly to your inbox in your mail, so that members can be kept updated with such comments.

Sometimes, members can be updated about posts (otherwise known as "recommended buzz") from certain people that they are not following. Such posts are usually really popular amongst friends, which is either recommended by friends, or is identified by Google Buzz to be seen as something that could be of interest to the member. Google Buzz even removes posts that might not interest members, so time can be well spent reading what is important, than wasting time reading what's not. Members can also easily access Google Buzz on their phones, so they can update their friends, even in the real world.

However, with the introduction of Google Buzz, many has complained about the lack of privacy provided by the website, which is a similar problem faced by many social networking sites. Due to the "recommend" feature in Buzz, many people's privacy can be compromised, and their comments, or status updates, might be seen by people that they do not want to reveal themselves to.

From what I had seen from Google Buzz, it is very similar to how many social networking sites function; it offers nothing groundbreaking or engaging. Many of its features are already offered by other sites.