Introduction to Internet

Is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy? 

So, the semester is coming to a close, and formal lessons in school have ended. As for COM125, we are down to the Finals on a long time coming, Dec. 14 (albeit horribly late but better late than never). Excited? Yes. I think we all deserve a break from a very tiring semester. To be honest, the Internet is a lot more than what we know. COM125 has shown me that. The Internet - is something that keeps evolving. COM125 is not the same from 5 years ago and will not be the same in 5 years time either. I think that is the beauty of the Internet. A constant change and influx of information and intelligence. So here is the compilation of what we have done in 13 weeks.

Week 1: Introduction to Internet (Past, Present, Future)

Week 2: Social Media (Management Tools and Platforms)

Week 3: Social Media for Business

Week 4: e-Commerce

Week 5: e-Learning

Week 6 & 7: Internet Tools (Vlog)

Week 8: Internet Security

Week 9: Internet Media

Week 10: Internet and Politics

Week 11: Internet and Journalism

Week 12: Future of Internet

And here we are, back in the present of Week 13. Indeed, COM125 has been hella a ride but this is how the Internet will stay relevant - by constantly changing. Couldn’t have pulled through this module without Abel and his “baaaaaaaaaaad” jokes - thank you!

Signing off for the last time, ZNXL

(Leaving yall my favourite “baaaaaaaad” joke from class)  Abel: *teaching class material* So class, tell me whyyyyyyy? (proceeds to sing the song) 

(not a product placement but a great video summary with good graphics) 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or "things" embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data. By the year 2020, it is estimated that at least 26 million things will be connected to the Internet. Some even project it at 50 billion things - that means.. approximately 5~6 objects for each person standing on Earth. Insane? Yes. Plausible? Also yes. This is the future of the Internet - a big part of what is envisioned to be “Web 3.0″.

As we know, even though Web 2.0 has changed passive users of the Internet to creators of content - there is still a lot of unlinked data of the same genre that is just simply... floating around in Internet space. Web 3.0 aims to close that gap. With all the astounding amount of new content created daily, the next step is to pool it all together into a particular global database - tasked with billions of sensors working in overdrive. So how do we do that? We make what we already have, but smarter. 

Set-ups like the Internet of Things Consortium have tasked themselves to educate companies about the power of IoT. “The IoTC educates technology firms, retailers, insurance companies, marketers, media companies and the wider business community about the value of IoT.” IoTC talks about the distinct shift from the Information Age towards the Intelligence age, the equipping up-to-age technology that can help better our everyday lives. So exactly how will this work? How does Web 3.0 and the IoT weave in seamlessly into our everyday lives? (watch the video)

The IoT is a lot bigger than everyone thinks. Even in Singapore, IoT conventions are held yearly where the next IoT Asia 2016 is held from 30 - 31 March at the Singapore Expo. They focus on the exploration of 6 main aspects of the future Web 3.0 - smart cities, wearables, design applications, enablers, industrial IoT and IoT data analytics. Many incorporated into homes and are ranked accordingly to usage/need of the preferences of the homeowner. 

As seen in the infographic, smart refrigerators would enable viewing of contents from outside of the fridge and recommend recipes based on the ingredients already present. Or even things like tooth brushing habits that could be sent to the dentist to help improve your dental practices. The IoT - as I’ve mentioned before, is to use what you already have and make it smarter. Many of these innovations are envisioned to be installed or ready by 2020 - a mere 5 years to go. Which is insane, considering that’s when the majority of the new Singapore MRT Line is ready. How prepared will Singapore be in moving towards the new IoT? How accepting will we be? Can it be weaved into this young’s country IT climate? We’ll just have to wait and see.

ZNXL

p.s It’s almost Christmas in less than a month!

The concept of Citizen journalism (also known as "public," "participatory", "democratic", "guerrilla" or "street" journalism) is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information."

Citizen journalism is the new know-how. Personal accounts of those who are there right on the scene of the event - documented, uploaded and usually viral within minutes. In this growing world of “who’s the fastest”, mainstream media has taken upon themselves to utilize the vast amount of information there is on the net of a particular incident. However, this also means breaking news is no longer - breaking. Indeed, mainstream media’s role in covering notable events has changed. It is not as though a reporter could anticipate every significant event that’s about to occur. But those found in these circumstances (sometimes, not the best place to be) are the new sources of immediate coverage. Mainstream media news articles are now made up of contributions by citizen journalists (with attribution - hopefully). That is how journalism is evolving. 

Mainstream media is moving towards being a consolidator, weaving in context through the personal accounts of the people on the street, checking, double checking, triple checking if the information holds true. This is how 21st-century journalism works. Some might disagree that this is a bad shift for the mainstream media - where the society should take on a more passive role and receive news from “credible” news outlets. I’d like to challenge that notion.

Journalism is about stating facts - no opinions, no bias (unless an opinion piece). Of course, that is highly unattainable because perfection isn’t anyone’s thing. The role of journalists, be it mainstream or netizen contributed should be just a presentation of facts. It can be coupled with contexts, additional information to create a truthful story behind it. But ultimately, judgement lies on the reader - the journalist does not make the decision for the people. 

But with citizen journalism, there is the notion of reality and the fake. Mainstream media outlets have more to lose when they produce an unchecked news article - its years of reputation, dampen. However, netizens can just upload a photo/video under a pseudo name, keep his or her identity hidden. It is then, as readers to make judgement and fact-check on your account - to ensure what is said is true. This is when mainstream media is used to cross-reference for consistency. This is how 21st-century journalism works. 

In the video below, Erin Finicane - a citizen student journalist, gives tips on how you too, can be a citizen journalist. To uncover social problems that the mainstream media has failed to addressed, to shine light on a problem that needs to be eradicated. 

What do you think of this new age journalism? Is it fair to mainstream news outlet who have worked centuries to produce news for its people? Or is citizen journalism - a complementary outlet to the mainstream outlets? Or does mainstream news outlet even hold a place as our source of information anymore?

ZNXL

In the upcoming elections in the United States, we have the GOP (Grand Old Party) which represents the Republicans and the Democrats. Now - we all know how well the Democrats have utilised the Internet for their elections. Obama and his #YesWeCan campaign that I’ve elaborated in a previous blog post. And in the recent news is Hillary Clinton’s email scandals - though not interesting enough for an entire blog post. So I’d like to take this opportunity to shed some light on the infamous Donald Trump, or The Donald, The Don, The Trumpster. 

Now, I’d first like to state that I am in no way a supporter of Donald Trump and whatever he’s up to. Honestly, I don’t get how he is running for Presidency. However, I’d like to think that America being the country of Freedom is providing us some sort of, entertainment per se. I mean, who isn’t actually a little tickled by the thought of The Trumpster as president. I’d like to see him build the wall between the border of America and Mexico as his first project as President. Other than his harsh comments and blatant racism towards coloured people - I’ve always wondered if The Trumpster is actually self-funded. Because, funding essentially directs a candidate’s opinions and stances which are facilitated by the Internet through social media etc. 

Interestingly enough, despite being the CEO of Trump Organisation, his campaign is not exactly self-funded. According to this article, Donald Trump 2016 Campaign has raised USD$3.9 million through “unsolicited donors”. So exactly how does this bring us back to the Internet? It would make sense that if Trump was self-funded, what he says and what he represents is not limited by his sponsors. That would mean that his (nonsensical) views would not have any liabilities. But apparently he’s not. So how well has Donald and his Make America Great Again campaign worked out so far? Not too great - though who is surprised? 

The Trumpster is very vocal on his twitter account (@realDonaldTrump) - I mean, can’t get any realer than this right? So what has gone wrong? Or very right? As part of his Make America Great Again! campaign, he visited Twitter’s HQ for a #AskTrump Q&A. Now this is not uncommon, many other politicians such as Obama’s Q&A on Tumblr and Hilary Clinton’s Facebook Q&A. Except that instead of being asked important issues that a presidency candidate would tackle as President, the Trumpster gets a whole lot of... silly ones.

Like this, or this, or that, if you look over there, and then here and etc.  As you can see, the Internet does not take him seriously (I mean, who does?). Clearly, Donald Trump is not that great at the Internet when he tweets a hella a lot, over 3 thousand now (a lot for someone who only recently got on the Twitter train). Furthermore, he’s not good at it either. Here are some examples:

Not that great, huh? It’s no wonder Donald Trump is by far - unpopular. Although I am sure he would beg to differ. Politics in today’s world is highly influenced by the way you represent yourself on the net. I am sure, the Trumpster will be having a hella a time trying to prove his statements true but I’d give him credit for trying. We can only wait for the elections in 2016 to see how it plays out, and if the Internet plays in his favour.

ZNXL

Augmented Reality will take over the world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, used for education, work, or just information sharing that will blow this world away. 

However, I want to focus on the entertainment usage of AR. Because, what’s fun without actually having fun? 

First, I’d like to introduce one of the most successful games by Google, Ingress. 

Ingress is a real-world smartphone game (now available on both Google Play and the App Store) where it is a giant game using our landscapes on Earth to facilitate the game process. The games usually happen in “portals” of human creativity, such as landmarks - museums, sculptures, parks, public spaces. It is GPS based, and when you’re near a particular portal you can either hack it, capture it, reinforce it or liberate it from the opposing team. There are now seven over million people worldwide playing Ingress that pushes you out of the comforts of home to meet other people. It is fully integrating the technology of our phones into the world we neglect out of it - bringing it together for the best kind of results. 

Another segment to Augmented Reality is Virtual Reality. Those who are immersed in virtual reality no longer see anything from the real world - and is usually achieved by wearing a headset that completely blocks out the world around you such as the VR helmet known as the Oculus Rift. 

To me, one of the best inventions for virtual reality games are the horror games that comes with it. Played mostly by YouTubers - you can sense the immense amount of fear even though it is virtual. They go through the game as though they are walking through a haunted house - which seem to have the same effects. This shows how effective and successful the Oculus Rift has been, where once the headphones and gear are equipped the user knows nothing else but what he or she feels within the game. A truly terrifying full body experience indeed. Here’s one of my favourite, Affected played by Pewdiepie. P.S Warnings for his “expressive” language - which means, please do not which if you are offended by crude language. 

But of course, a more practical and relevant way that AR is used today is educating the generations to come. With globalisation occurring like rapid fire, it is important to bring the world into the classroom. Usually, that’s not how it is done with textbooks with rows and rows of text that would put anyone to sleep (I can relate). Just like living in the world of Harry Potter, with moving pictures that line the wall of your school - that is what AR is trying to achieve. One of my favourite application is the DAQRI’s Anatomy 4D. 

By seeing the body in 4D, it helps the student visualise and pinpoint the exact body part such as a particular bone, organ or vein. In contrast to a 2D textbook print out, this would help facilitate learning for students at a much faster pace. This engages the students without extra spending on the physicalities on education. This - augmented reality - will change the world as we know it. 

ZNXL

As we all know, YouTube is the most used Internet tool as of today. This video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees (I guess you can’t run away from the Internet industry, huh?) allows you to upload, view and share videos. Videos can be user-generated, or by corporate companies. Some can be both, like Buzzfeed - a company based off YouTube by creating their user-generated videos. In 2014, YouTube is reportedly uploading 300 new videos every minute and 3/4 of it comes from outside of the USA. YouTube is a cycle of innovation - it pushes people to find inspiration within the videos and out of it. From being YouTube stars like Tyler Oakley now hailed as the popular champion of his YouTube career to corporate brandings. 

Here are some interesting facts about YouTube: 1. The former PayPal employees actually used their bonuses from the Ebay buyout of PayPal (Thank you Ebay!)  2. It was first, meant to be a dating site influenced by “Hot ‘N’ Out” but turned out to be YouTube as what we know today.  3. The very first video uploaded to YouTube is by one of it’s co-founders, Jawed Kamin which still can be found on YouTube today, titled “Me at the Zoo”.  4. YouTube crossed 1 Trillion hits in 2011 which means an average of 140 views per person. 5. It would take 1,700 to finish watching all of the videos on YouTube (I would if I could but who knows what on the dark side of YouTube).

ZNXL

As a photographer by profession (assistant), cinematography albeit similar have very different challenges. My subject matter is a dog, Mexx, a dog that I occasionally had over at my place when his owners were away. The choice was simple - Mexx has the cute factor that people would adore! Plus, it did help that he posed for the camera, all the time. 

The vlog is shot entirely in Nikon D7000, accompanied by Nikon NF 55-200mm and Nikon AF 50mm 1.8 lens. Indeed, filming was pushing me out of my comfort zone as in photography, your main goal is to capture the entire story in a single shot. Whereas in cinematography, the luxury of unlimited frames gave me too much choice and chances. The only setting available was in the house as the haze was insane and it was too impractical to venture outdoors. Hence, I had to take more proactive shots to keep the vlog moving forward without boring the audience. I struggled immensely with the focus while videoing, and hence explains the switch to a fixed lens which provided much better (in focus!) shots. The free application, iMovie comes together with my Apple iMac and was used to edit the vlog. It was very time consuming when it came to editing as it came to the seconds. As this was, a type of “silent film” in majority, I thought the addition of background music, Cute by www.bensound.com - a royalty free music source. 

Though I had to say, I was rather proud of my final product and I enjoyed the process thoroughly. It was fun and engaging, and now I understand the amount of work that goes into Youtube stars and their daily vlogs (totally insane!)

ZNXL 

e-Learning: Learning that is facilitated by the use of digital tools and content. Typically, it involves some form of interactivity, which may include online interaction between the learner and their teacher or peers. 

Educational electronic learning has been known to receive bad press, and their justifications stand true. There are still many problems left unresolved such as the telling of the truth with omission, with regards to the amount of dropout rates or the deactivated accounts that are still used as part of their statistics. Other problems may be the difficulty in grading - what are the testing methods that should be put to practice, MCQ? Short-answer Questions? Essays? How do we ensure that the work done is not by someone else, could it have been copied? Was it guided? 

We all know that there are two faces of a coin - so naturally e-Learning will bring about it’s benefits. The question is - what are they?

Convenience and Flexibility  When everything is online, it is available anywhere anytime 24/7 for learners as they please. They are not confined to physical spaces such as classrooms or lecture halls, saving time on commuting from home/dormitory to school. Additionally, it allows the student who are not natural morning people (like me), to do assignments and attend courses at times that I am most alert (at night, because I am part owl). Moreover, this increases accessibility. All learners need is WiFi and a computer. There is nothing else that deters them other than their self-motivation. I believe that this in turn might result in improved performance in students. The goals of the particular course are already set in stone, allowing students to plan ahead of time in the way they want. Some may prefer to do differing assignments before reports or vice versa. The personalization of such courses that allows smooth flow and lack of disruption of their personal lives out of “e-school” as well. All of this mean is that perhaps e-Learning is the way to go to enhance efficiency through its intensely personal methods as it stays relevant, reliable and engaging to the learner. 

The idea of Authentic Learning comes to mind - Bloom’s Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three primary “domains”. Cognitive, Psychomotor and Affective.

Cognitive is split into two layers - lower and higher order thinking. Under lower order thinking, we must first remember our facts, follow by understand and apply it to real life situations. To reach higher order thinking, we must then use our acquired and mastered information from our previous lower order thinking, and use it to analyse, evaluate and create a new set of ideas or knowledge.

Psychomotor refers to the ability to physically manipulate a particular tool or instrument - this refers to hand-ons skills such learning how to drive a car by actually practising on a car and not just read about it. Or perhaps learning how to fly a plane or handling it during a crash landing through a flight simulator. 

Lastly, there’s Affective where it is targeted at the awareness of attitudes, emotions and feelings. This is a course of, receiving, responding, valuing, organizing and characterizing. 

One of the most successful e-Learning platforms is Coursera. Their mission is to provide universal access to the world’s best education. They have courses from famous institutions such as Princeton University, University of London, The World Bank Group, and even our local university, Nanyang Technological University. Currently, they offer about 1,452 courses from 26 countries and acquired over 15 million learners on the site. Most of the courses are FREE (I repeat, Free!) or available at very low cost. There is really nothing standing in our way at all. At the end of the course, learners will receive a certificate - here’s one from Johns Hopkins University via Coursera in Computing for Data Analysis. 

We can now only hope the e-Learning will be pushed further and be improved and hopefully provide more accessible education to those who need it the most - everyone.

ZNXL

E-commerce, short for electronic commerce, is trading in products or services using computer networks, such as the Internet. This week, we are exploring the Return of Investment (ROI) of Social Media. With the age of the Internet, many businesses are going online, many of which are now known as E-commerce. In a recent study by Duke University, only 13% (as of 2015) of their budgets are allocated to marketing on Social Media platforms. It is pity and an absolute waste that E-commerce businesses have not experienced and fully embraced the capabilities of Social Media. 

CUSTOMERS Marketers now can view, in real-time, the interactions not only between the content and audience but also, across the target audiences. These allow genuine expressions of opinions and feedback to your content that enables you to tweak your products better towards your customers.   With Social Media, such as the chat box or leave a message option on Facebook, one would think to invest in a system where replies can be regularly attended to within a few minutes. Because immediacy in today’s world is everything. We are no longer used to waiting, and even the 15 seconds advertisements before every Youtube video we watch is an absolute pain.

Shopify In a recent study done by Shopify, Facebook dominates in terms of their social traffic (63% - 23.3M), accounting for 2/3 of their sales. Facebook, with its obvious advantage, is the first choice for Social Media marketing as it is most widely used and accessible. Many will first search up their Facebook page before purchasing products on sale from their main website - this allows them to find third party opinions such as other customers who have previously purchased from the same vendors. According to the Business Models on the Web, Shopify uses the Brokerage Model where it is categorized as a Virtual Marketplace as it provides the service of being a hosting service to build their stores with e-commerce software provided. 

Each plan is catered to the seller’s needs. Services provided may include a mobile version of the shop, carrier shipping updates, HTML/CSS theme editing for the website’s layout etc. They also supply marketing and SEO reports, where you can improve and cater your online marketplace to your target audience to gain more sales. 

This is similar to the example Professor Michael Rappa stated, Amazon. Amazon has stepped up their game by involving robots to help with their high demand of 35 orders every second. With about 31 million seconds a year, that would amount to 1.8 billion orders a year! The robots now help reduce time in shifting and finding stocks, allowing employees to waste less time to facilitate the orders better.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING SERVICES (http://social-media-marketing-services-review.toptenreviews.com) The rankings are topped by WebiMax. These are evaluated through 3 main criterias: Profile Creation and Management; Performance Monitoring and Reports; Help and Support. They help develop strategies that are specific to your audience, demographic and businesses. 

RETURN OF INVESTMENT As an E-commerce company, where most of your products are sold online, it would only make sense if you take extra advantage to unlock the full potential of the Internet. Of course, it is only practical if your ROI is of measurable means. Hence, here are a few steps you can take to ensure you are using the right marketing strategies. 

Step One: Set Your Goals  Determine, who’s your target audience, reach, demographics. These can be easily set using software such as Hubspot. Conversion goals are at the tip of your fingers since it has recently implemented it as part of Google Analytics. (look here for the guide to using Google Analytics)

Step Two: Choose the Right Platform

As you can see from the infographic above, it shows you the choices each medium can offer. Pinterest may be something you want to promote something new and crafty. Twitter can be used as an additional promotion with minimal words. Facebook, the ultimatum of all - can be used as your primary platform for all essential information as well as the interaction with customers. Instagram can be used to promote the aesthetics of your product/service, mainly using pictures and 15-second videos. Google+ can be where your brand built cohesive circles to keep like-minded customers in search of the same thing together. Lastly, LinkedIn can be used to bring together companies/brands together to network and connect to share they innovations with each other for further inspirations. 

Step Three: Track Campaigns  A favourite of mine, HootSuite have been covered thoroughly in the previous blog post. (Thanks, Obama)

Here’s a step by step return-of-investment in Social Media for E-commerce companies. Hopefully, you’ve been convinced. 

ZNXL

No one really thinks of running a country like a business, people prefer to believe that it is a service to the society. A sort of, given benefit that one should have. Now I’m not saying we are ignorant bigots (although some are), but it is nearly impossible to run a country without treating it as a business. Clearly I am not a fan of communism, but you do you and I do me. However, to push my point, I’d like to state that a country that has profitable businesses will translate to increased welfare and advancement for the people, that is, presuming the state is anti-corrupt (not in some cases - Najib). 

Before my fingers run off the keyboard and start writing more babble as I always do, I’d like to keep this discussion within the walls of the Internet. Exactly how does the Internet... or in this case,  Social Media, help with businesses?

Let’s think big - the Obama Adminstration. 

Now we all know, how adept Barack Obama is at Social Media. That is, with the help of his Administration. It is important that each Facebook/Instagram post or a tweet is treated with the same respect as with each statement he makes in the parliament. It is all part of the package, of how he is being represented by the country that he serves. Obviously, I am not the only one who has caught on to this immaculate tool Obama has acquired to his advantage.

“Our consideration is these platforms just reach so many people, we can’t not play in that space,” said Amy Brundage, deputy communications director at the White House.

Now... We know that Barack Obama and his administration has done well, but exactly how well? Here are some statistics:

Facebook: @Barack Obama - 44.6m likes  Twitter: @POTUS - 4.2m followers | @WhiteHouse - 7.1m followers Google+: 5.7m followers  Youtube: The White House - 588k subscribers 

A lot has been given credit to the win of the elections by the continuation of interactivity and participation through the social media platforms that Barack Obama use. The sense of importance that breaches the walls of authority, where your comment could be directly addressed by someone as important as the POTUS allowed people leeway in the way they could voice their opinions. Social Media allowed and created a pathway for that. It probably allowed Obama to be re-elected for a second term (totally great btw). People have to realise they can no longer ignore the presence of something stewing on the internet. We are no longer able to ignore the power of this something non-concrete. It is the very non-concrete property that allows messages to transcend through to everyone and anyone. 

A social media management software Obama used for his State of the Union Address is known as HootSuite. HootSuite is the #1 Social Media Management software as of today. It features a Dashboard that you can control how you want your brand to be presented. As all social media platforms are shown on one page, it allows for more in real-time interaction with the participators. Featured as well is analytics, to let you know what is more well-received in order to mold your brand to be more people-orientated. More information can be found here: https://hootsuite.com

Special shoutout to Michelle Obama  Facebook: @Michelle Obama - 14.2m likes Twitter: @FLOTUS - 2.7m followers She is such an inspiration as a woman and being the best Michelle Obama there ever has been. And no, I refuse to only refer to her as the FLOTUS for she is an excellent and powerful source of strength and does not need to be defined by her husband (even if he is the President of the United States).

More articles to consider (elaboration of POTUS and his usage of Social Media): Method of Communication  http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2015/05/26/heres-how-the-first-president-of-the-social-media-age-has-chosen-to-connect-with-americans/ HootSuite and the State of Union Address  http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-uses-social-media-to-build-momentum-for-state-of-union-address-1421698782 Social Media President, the Phenomenon (Book)  http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-social-media-president-james-e-katz/?K=9781137380845 Barack Obama on Social Media (Wikipedia)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_social_media

ZNXL

Oh, dearest Social Media. You are the bane of my existence. Our love-hate relationship stems from a source of distraction. I cannot deny, for you are the best tool for procrastination. Soon enough, I would not have realized, that all I had left for the world was 99% babble, with death knocking at my door. 

In line of my very bad semi-poetic introductory, have a go at some Social Media Haiku. 

So why exactly is Social Media so great? Is it due to it’s social capital abilities, where the social convergence of trade and marketing come together? Or is it a marvel of new age software engineering, in terms of social technology? My take on Social Media is what it is - Social. It is its social utility that is so attractive (and addictive), the idea of building social relationships without the conventional limitations of physicality. The world is ours, and it's literally at the touch of our fingertips (geddit? touch screen? haha I’m so funny not)

To elaborate on the scale of social media platforms, I’d like to list down a few (or a lot); there is Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest... and the list never ends. Have you ever wondered why we need so many? In my world, Facebook is a video sharing/political outreach platform, Twitter is for my day-to-day babbling and Instagram is for when I am feeling a little artsy. (But of course, Tumblr is where I keep my deepest thoughts that I am too afraid for the world to know, kind of ironic if you’d think about it) It's very distinctive characteristics of each medium that allows better facilitation of specific information. 

The Medium is the Message.

It comes down to the choice of medium, that really selects the target audience that increases the chances of better reception of a particular message that one might be trying to get across. It is the reason why people choose to use different mediums, even though, most can do the same. 

What is most astonishing about social media is its immense power and outreach. All you ever need to contribute to history in the making is a smartphone and Wifi. This generation would be the most documented generation that has ever been from the beginning of time on Earth. Each selfie, each thought, each sharing documented is the equivalent to a fossil etched and set in stone. Think of it on its massive scale we have as of today:

Historians studying ancient civilizations have limited evidence remaining to aid their understanding of the past. But historians of the future would know everything and anything, perhaps a little too much. Maybe a name change would be appropriate, Expert Sorters - Historians of the Future. 

You have to credit the success of Social Media to the very users itself. Us, the people, are so fixated on being heard. We want to be heard, be special, be outstanding and in that very same sense, generate as many thoughts to be published for the world to see. Maybe, in everyone lies a little voice hoping for the world to be taken by something we have thought - out of the blue, out of nothing, or maybe a lot. 

ZNXL 

Information is the new currency. A noticeable trend in today’s world is the fact that people who acquire the most information has, at that moment, the most power. However, attaining all of the information in the world is highly impossible (right?) So how does one exactly become the next most powerful being in the world? You essentially have to create a gateway to information. By being a gateway, that would include serving as a platform, a platform that allows users to access information given by other participants in this vast network. 

Abel, my lecturer (who is probably reading this), brought up an interesting perspective. The idea where Uber is an application for private transportation, such as taxis or cars for hire, but they do not own any vehicles. 

In the recent months, I too came across this up-and-coming new trend for companies in this article by Tom Goodwin. http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/in-the-age-of-disintermediation-the-battle-is-all-for-the-customer-interface/#.bhhtjk:XjZy  

If you’re too lazy (or cannot be bothered, though I do not blame you) to read it, here’s a summary.

http://www.slideshare.net/CMTelecom/m-co-london26march

What all this means is that people and their corresponding companies are just creating platforms where users take up an active participatory role in giving their information up voluntarily. For example, Facebook creates no content but holds an immense amount of personal information. This includes addresses, phone numbers, pictures of the users themselves. It is important to remember that this information was given up with consent onto the platform, and Facebook was simply just another way to gain access to all of the information. 

You see, the Internet was not built for security. It was never part of the plan. The idea of the Internet is for information sharing, which is the polar opposite of security. In order to have an effective way of sharing information with the rest of the world from your singular computer, accessibility would be the priority during the creation of this incredible but also potentially dangerous tool. 

This trend can be witnessed in every major social media platform. This includes but not limited to, Instagram, Twitter, Airbnb and more. Are these not just mere platforms for people to gain easy access to information?

So why does this matter in the grand scheme of things? There’s the idea of the lack of security, such as identity theft, where it is easy to imitate or manipulate personal data. The Internet is not owned by a single country, state or person. It is this uncontrollable system that has inevitably become the most powerful system that is seemingly breathing among us. Ironic, because it is not an actual living being.

Collectively, the Internet is made up of intellectual (or potentially intelligent) individuals that use it to compile, debate, cross-reference ideas, concepts and stories. 

And as witnesses of this trend, what can we do to gain the most out of it? Entrepreneurship, innovation, new ways of thinking are paths carved for unthinkable creations. Finding capital is no longer a problem with crowd funding options, such as kickstater.com or indiegogo.com. All it takes is a lot of will, passion and a group of “never say no” people. It is most important to remember that it is okay to fail because mistakes are what makes you, you. (It is also nice to ponder over the possibility of being the next Mark Zuckerberg)

In retrospect, think of what would happen one day if Google vanishes. Because, if you do not know the answer to something, just Google it. But, Google would not exist anymore so… who exactly do we turn to for our answers? (let’s be honest, we can naturally discount less impressive search engines).

Are we the new slaves of the century? Slaves to information? 

Or are we choosing to embrace, this marvel of incomprehensive understanding? 

ZNXL