The E-mall

Week 4 

There are many things that we can do on the Internet. Shopping and acquiring products and services is one of many of things that we can do on the Internet. And really, who do not do any shopping at all in their life? Buying daily necessities is also a form of shopping, albeit its not the slow, browsing, slow walking kind of shopping but it is shopping nevertheless. 

Shopping is something that is really fun to do but it involves changing and leaving the house and taking transport to the mall. And sometimes after all these troubles, you never got what you want because its out of stock at the mall or the outlet that have the item is in another mall. And occasionally, the item that you want is not even in Singapore, or whatever country you are in at that time. It may be some special edition that is only available in another country. Its really frustrating to physically shop sometimes. 

And this is where the Internet comes in handy. Now, a lot of shops or product owners have set up shop online. They have their own websites that showcase what they are selling and offers online purchases and shipment to the purchaser without the need to meet physically. And the best part of this is that since international shipping has become faster with the invention of the plane, most online stores ship worldwide. The ability to track our packages has also made it easier and safer to ship from another country. Many companies has set up their own online websites that allows for a bigger audience than those that are in their immediate proximity. 

 This is a company based overseas that offers scratch prove (Warranty) full body protector for your device. It is (to my knowledge) impossible to buy such a product in singapore. However, they offer the option to ship to another country besides their own and this was how I managed to get this protector as a gift once.  

This is a company that sells full body designed protector for devices ranging from phones to tablets to laptops. It also allows for people to customise their own designs and create it into skins for their devices. There are similar services in Singapore such as this one. But the difference is the price and the designs. (Personally, I like this one more) 

These companies are not based in Singapore, yet people in this country knows about their existence and the services that they provide. This is how powerful the web is and how the web can help companies and businesses expands beyond their own shoreline. 

Besides helping established companies to blossom over the seas, the web has also enable the set up of new platforms to help people sell their products. These people have no companies or physical outlets. Many of them are looking to make some extra money selling their products online. These platforms, such as Qoo10, eBay and Etsy to name a few, helps individuals sell items without the need to set up a webpage or buy a domain name and what not. It also makes it easier for people to locate what they want as search bars pulls up similar searches in one page, easy for the consumer to see. 

This is Etsy, a platform for individuals to sell their handmade items. They have shops from the states to China to Romania. 

In recent years, a new trend has occurred. Something call mobile commence. Simply put, its when products and services are brought to the people at their fingertips. Meaning? Applications and online shopping from our phones! If one think about it, alot of services and products have also moved onto mobile phone platforms. It used to be mobile phone browser compatible. Now most services and products have their own application to be downloaded into mobile phones. This allows for their users to have a more convenient way to purchase goods or services from the companies and also to browse their content. 

Etsy letting their patrons know that they have an application available on these mobile platforms. 

Our own Singaporeans also use the web to establish themselves and their business. Many become really successful and some of them even manage to open their own shops. 

This was first established as a website and now they have their own store at Orchard Central. 

With the web, many new services also become available. Because of the dynamic interface and possibilities, many new service can be created and cater to the people of the world. 

Food Panda delivers food to your door step from restaurants near you so you do not have to leave your house and still can get food from the restaurants that do not have their own delivery services. You simply enter your postal code and they will tell you what restaurants are available in your vicinity and you can choose from the list and have food deliver to your door step. 

The benefits of the internet on goods and services: 

1. create awareness 

2. expend to other countries.

3. allow for individuals to create and sell items without much capital.

4. take away the frustrating feelings one feel when unable to obtained something they want in stores. 

5. create new businesses that were almost impossible physically

The internet has created not just a place to share information and find friends and network, it has also create a place for people to expend their businesses and cater to a larger audience. It has also create a place for individuals to obtain the goods or services that they might not otherwise be able to find in their own country. Plus allowing companies and sellers to expand out of their own shorelines. 

Face Book or Facebook

Week three

Networking or making friends and keeping in touch with them has been a part of our lives from a very young age. We first learnt how to make friends then how to keep in contact with them. The ideal of making friends and keeping in contact with them has not change but the means to do so has changed over the years. Before Friendster or Facebook, we relied on technologies such as telephones to keep in touch with one another. Some even wrote letters and postcards that they will mail to one another to keep in contact. When I was in primary school, there was a hype at one point where we would keep pretty little journals in which we get people to write a bibliography about themselves. It contains the basics such as our name, age, date of birth (abbreviated to  D.O.B) and some other details such as what we like to eat, our favourite movies, our favourite shows, our favourite books, etc. 

This is an example of one such journal that I have kept over the years. back when there was no Friendster or Facebook, this was how I kept the information of my friends and what i turned to when  I wanted to keep in contact with them. This is equivalent to the 'About' section that we have now, on out Facebook profile. The information that it asked for are also the same as those on the 'About' section. The typical name, age, birthday and so forth.

Of course, these days, young kids do not have such a journal anymore. Why would they? Everything that they need is easily accessible on Facebook. You do not need to bring a book to school and ask someone to fill it in while you seat there and wait for them. Wanna know more about a person? Add them on Facebook. How hard is touching a few icons right?

Back then there are letters and notes that we write to one another to keep in touch or calls we place to see how the other person is doing. When I was in primary school, we wrote notes to one another to 'be in the loop'. We pass them around in class or to one another after school and would reply to them and pass it back another time. If it was during class time, it was a challenge not to be caught by the teacher. I think the scariest thing to hear when you are sneaking a note to your friend was 'what are you doing? Hand me that note" and you see the teacher coming towards you all stern and angry. That was terrifying.

But then something happened and we could send each other testimonials to keep in touch with one another. That was what friendster offered us. There was no more paper or pen and there was no more trying to sneak notes to one another during class. All of us went home and type long testimonials to one another over the internet. That became how we maintain friendships outside of face to face conversations. We send testimonials to one another for all sorts of reasons. We even send e cards to one another during birthdays and what not.

When facebook showed up, there was even poking that could be sent online to one another. I know someone who would poke this other person over facebook and the other person would poke back and this would continue the whole day. Just poking and nothing else. This was how they communicate to one another and maintain their friendship, or progress their friendship. Besides poking, Facebook offers other features like status updates and sharing of photos and videos and 'emotions' in the form of emoticons. In many sense we no longer have to physically pick up a phone and call someone to let them know how we feel and/or tell them something that happened. We can do this digitally, and share it with everyone in our network. Everyone that are our friend can see how we feel, what we have been doing and so forth without having to be told.

And that leads us to the problems with our current form of social networking. In the past, we have to deliberately make an effort to keep in touch with people in our social network. We have to take the time and effort to call someone, to write down their contact details and make an effort to stay in the loop on the going ons in our friends' lives. Comedy dramas such as How I met your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Rules of Engagement, Friends, all show friends gathering at one location and sharing their happenings and lives. Although not everyone actually meet everyday and talk to one another, but this was what we did in the pass. We make an effort to sit down and talk to one another, write to one another or call one another. There was a more human-ish approach to keeping in touch. And we know who is at the receiving end of the information.

These days, we scroll through our news feed to see what other people are up to. We know roughly what everyone are up to without having to even say a word to them. I know where some of my secondary classmates are in the world without even having to talk to them or meet up. And this is all because of the power of Facebook and sharing. I know who is dating whom, who is doing what, who is studying what not because I talked to them or heard it from someone but because I tapped an icon on my phone and an application popped open with post after post of feeds telling me all these. Personally, I feel that this is a rather cold way of keeping in touch. There is human telling me what happened or no painstakingly written letter address to me to tell me all these. Just technology and the internet. This new technology has one flaw which, I feel, people should understand. Some people treat Facebook as their personal dairy and chronically post their daily happenings and moods on it. I know people like that and sometimes, I personally get annoyed because their posts keeps showing up. And its not short posts too. Its really long ones that summarises their day. I have taken the step to 'unfollow' their posts on Facebook. I have done this for pages that I have liked as well as they constantly spammed my news feed with very irrelevant information.

For those who wanna do the same but do not know how to (Although I suspect most people knows how):
1) go tho the person's page.
2) hover your pointer above the friends icon on the cover photo
3) A drop down list would appear. Uncheck 'show in news feed'
4) TADA!
its the same for pages that you have liked. Instead of the friend icon, its the liked icon.

Although to be fair, the new and 'improved' way of keeping in touch has its perks. For one, it allows for people to keep a larger group of friends. With social networking sites, we can maintain in contact with people from our past that we do not really see anymore and at the same time still know what they are up to. This can have great benefits such as job opportunities. With social networking sites as Facebook, we can keep up to date with where everyone is working at and if need be, we can ask for help on getting a job at a company that someone in our friendlist is working at. We can also look out for people that are in a particular field that we currently require. Say we need to film a video for a project and we know someone on our friend list who always upload home made professionally done videos. We could seek out their help in making a video for our project. Another benefit to social networking sites is that because people post what they are up to and what they are doing and stuff on it, if an awkward conversation ever comes up when you bump into that person outside, you can use the information you got on Facebook to make the conversation less awkward. Like 'Oh I saw that you went to Japan on Facebook that day. How was the country?'

Social networking has not change. But how we go about doing it has, From making calls and writing mails to scrolling through news feed, the way we have keep in touch with people has changed over time. There is no right or wrong way to social network. Both the traditional and modern form of social networking has its perks and its flaws. 

unSocial Media

Second week of COM 125 

Disclaimer: The images do not belong to me and I in no way claim that they do. All images and videos are obtained online. 

This week was all about the Internet and the new and upcoming thing, the social media. my first exposure to the social media was this little cool networking site: 

of course after that there are more networking sites that popped up like little bunnies all over the web. Recently, not too long ago, the most happening social media is this little gem: 

Although it has been a few years since the introduction of Facebook to the whole world, it is still growing relatively strong. Facebook has become a place for people to share their thoughts, photos, memories and what not with all their friends. Every user, at one point or another has uploaded something onto Facebook such as videos or photos or statues updates. And when most people upload their content onto Facebook, they do it so automatically that they do not think anything about it. 

  

100 billion photos, thats more than the number of humans there are on earth! And not to mention this was a year ago. Who knows how many photos there are on Facebook today!

All these photos uploaded to share with the world. However, there are certain risks associated with uploading photos onto Facebook, or any other photo sharing site for that matter. The video below explains how people can use photos that you uploaded onto Facebook or photo sharing sites or anywhere on the internet for that matter, to track the exact location to where it was last taken and arm with these information, they can easily locate you and track you down.

The take away point of this video is that we should be more aware of the power of the Internet and be more careful with the things and content that we upload onto the web. This awareness should not be extended to just photos, Facebook has this location feature that if turned on, would let people know where you were when you upload a statues of when you send messages through the messaging function. We have to be very careful of the things that we upload onto the Internet so as to make sure that we keep ourselves safe from potential predators. 

Alright, lets move to the something more light hearted then the potential stalking abilities of social networking sites. The Internet is something of a common language. Everyone knows what the Internet is to a certain extend and for those from countries with easier access, the Internet has several common webpages that most visit. And these common webpages can help people showcase their talents and share self created contents. One such webpage is YouTube. Today, I like to share with you a group that make good music and got popular through the Internet. 

Introducing, The Piano Guys:

Song: Michael Meets Mozart 

This group started out in Salt Lake City and made videos of them remixing songs with a piano and a cello. They uploaded them on YouTube and slowly, they started having a growing fan base on youtube. On the 2rd of September, they held an indoor concert in Singapore and they had 4000+ audience to cheer them on. They were a bunch of nobody who became somebody thanks to the power of the internet and its massive sharing capabilities. Now with over 1.8 million subscribers on their YouTube Channel, the Piano Guys are touring the world, holding concerts and sharing their music with everyone on the globe. 

Captioned: Hanging with 4000 of our closes friends in Singapore. 

In this new world of sharing and social networking site, it becomes easier for people to showcase their talents and abilities, making a name for themselves by simply sharing their created content on the web. 

The Internet is a very powerful tool. Added with the capabilities of the Web 2.0, interaction and sharing, the Internet is one of immense power. But with great power comes great responsibility. In this case, the responsibility lies with us to make sure that we keep ourselves safe from the predators on the web. Beware of the contents that you post on the web. 

the internet is a BIG BIG place

The first week of COM 125. 

This week, was the first week of COM 125 and the start of the fall semester. Although its the first week, I have already learnt something new. And that is what Web 2.0 really means. i always thought that the name was just a fancy way of naming the internet because anything with 2.0 sounds cooler than its predecessor. 

The Internet is an very interesting thing indeed. Considering that it was created only a while back, not even a century, it has grown into something that many of us cannot live without. It has become a means of communication, acquiring information, sharing new form of content and so forth. 

As the image clearly shows, in less than a century, the amount of domain names has increase exponentially. There are so many webpages on the Internet and we as humans cannot possibly finish reading all the pages or would probably never even see half the pages there are on the Internet. 

That kind of makes the Internet a rather intimidating place. Even the world's thickest book published had only 4032 pages as compared to the internet! 

Considering the growth rate of the internet, it is actually quite amazing hat something that was started out as different entities have eventually bloomed into something that the world shares as one. In the modern day, the internet is something almost everyone has access to and almost everyone, especially in the developed countries, find it hard to live without. 

The technologies available today has made using the Internet so much more easier and friendlier than before. It is now so much easier to create content on the Internet than before. There are many software out there to help people create the contents that they desire with just a few clicks. Other tools are also available to make the Internet a much more friendlier place. Such tools that has made the Internet easier to use are tools like domain names, which are essentially virtual addresses for sites, that allows for users to easily locate the page that they desire by keying in the address in the URL bar. There are other tools that help people access the Internet better, such as bookmarks that \remembers\ certain addresses so that someone can easily access a page. There are also servers that allows people ti host their own page for free, allowing them to share content that they have created. Blogger and yOutUbe are examples of such servers. These tools and servers and softwares has created a portal for people to create, share and explore the Internet and bring the it to a whole new different platform. Like I mentioned before, the term Web 2.0 has a meaning and it means a web that does not just display documents and so forth, it allows for the users to interact with it by creating their own content and viewing other people's content. We are in the current age of web 2.0 and the constantly advancing technology of the Internet has allow for that to happen. And very soon, we will enter the age of the Web 3.0 where further advance in technology would create a web that is smart like us.