Instant Messaging
Sunday, June 01, 2008 Filed in: Things
We live in an age of instant communication. That
implies instant messages, instant opinions, instant
perspectives, instant celebrity. Instantly.
Mass media has been mostly a one way street. Someone feeds information to the masses. Today, the internet age provides, for good or bad, a measure of feedback.
It also provides something else far more revolutionary. Personal mass communication.
While instant messages are usually a one-to-one communication, internet publishing means that anyone from anywhere can receive your message, and often respond accordingly via comments, forums posts, or email.
That's more of a two-way street.
The problem, of course, is in the volume of instantly available information, and the number of sources. Instead of a few networks pumping out audio and video programming, YouTube means the people can produce and broadcast themselves.
We've long since passed the age of '100 channels and nothing on.' Today, there are millions of channels on the internet.
mostly with 'nothing on.'
Mass media has been mostly a one way street. Someone feeds information to the masses. Today, the internet age provides, for good or bad, a measure of feedback.
It also provides something else far more revolutionary. Personal mass communication.
While instant messages are usually a one-to-one communication, internet publishing means that anyone from anywhere can receive your message, and often respond accordingly via comments, forums posts, or email.
That's more of a two-way street.
The problem, of course, is in the volume of instantly available information, and the number of sources. Instead of a few networks pumping out audio and video programming, YouTube means the people can produce and broadcast themselves.
We've long since passed the age of '100 channels and nothing on.' Today, there are millions of channels on the internet.
mostly with 'nothing on.'
