Communication Online

Communication online is gradually becoming more important in the world we live in today, with the variety of ways you can communicate with each other constantly increasing. In this blog entry I will talk about the ways of communicating online, advantages and disadvantages of the different ways and also my personal experience of using the different online communication tools.

Email 

Email or Electronic Mail allows you to send a piece of text, photo, document, video file etc from one computer to another. Since it was founded in 1971 it use has grown exponentially as the internet has developed. Using email is simple, a message is sent to an individual post box on a mail server where it waits until an email client picks it up.

What is an email client?

An email client is a program run by a user to send and receive email. It retrieves all email for its user from the mail server to which it is connected. It sends all mail from its user to the same mail serve, for distribution to other users of email on other servers. The server therefore manages the communication of mail between internet domains (such as hotmail.com and yahoo.com).

With the technological advances now a day’s email can now be used on smart phones for example: iPhone. An email system essentially allows you to:

See a list of messages in your mailbox, showing the senders name, the subject of the message, and the date and time it was sent.

Select individual messages to view

Compose messages with a subject heading and textual content, and sent them to any other email address.

Add attachments to mails and save attachments from mails

The message is usually composed in an editing window or frame within the mail client. This used to be entirely text-based but can now also be HTML-based. In modern computers this message can be cut and pasted from another application.

Advantages of Email:

Emails are easy to use

Emails are fast, they are delivered at once around the world. Email is the quickest form of written communication in the world.

The language used in emails is simple and informal.

Emails do not use paper!!

Disadvantages of Email:

Emails may carry viruses; these are small programs that harm your computer system.

Many people send unwanted emails to others, these emails are known as ‘spam mails’

You mailbox can get flooded if you don’t regularly clear out your inbox.

My Personal Experience:

I, as a student use emails a lot! The majority of the time I use them for school work, to send work I have done at school home or vice-versa. Emails allow me to contact teachers if I find work hard or am having trouble with it. Email also allows me to contact relatives who live abroad; for example my uncle lives in Spain and without emails I would never be able to contact him. Emails are vitally important for me in the way I work both at school and at home.

Social Media

Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are now used worldwide for communication and are an integral part of today’s society. Social Networking allows people do a variety of things such as: Favourite, Like, Follow, Re-Tweet, Tweet, Update their Status and the list goes on! The average Facebook user spends 1.2 days a month on the sight.

Facebook

Facebook is by far the most dominant social networking sight today with 750 million users currently using the site. Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and exploded onto the social networking scene and laid down the guidelines for social networking sites following it.  Facebook allows users to create a profile, where they can share information about themselves. After making your profile you can then add friends; this allows you to look at their profile page, you can also post on their ‘wall’.

Social Media Revolution 2012

Advantages

Facebook is free and its one of the best medium for communication.

With Facebook you can connect to any type of people from anywhere in the world.

Facebook is a great way of finding old friends that you may have lost contact with.

Facebook allows you to openly share your feelings and views.

Facebook allows you to receive news on celebrities and other news you may be interested in

Disadvantages

Fake Profiles are easy to make so there could be someone pretending to be you.

Facebook sometimes bring about bad results to students with them spending a lot of their time on the site.

FACEBOOK IS ADDICTIVE! Can lead to the death of a social life.

My Personal Experiences:

I have been on Facebook for about 4 years now, it allows me to talk and communicate with friends which I love. It also allows people to make groups and events; this is useful if organising a party where you can have all the information in one place. I do find Facebook incredible addictive however and I would be the first one to admit that I spend way too much time on the site.

Twitter

Twitter is the second largest social networking behind Facebook. Twitter has around a third of the users than Facebook does. Twitter allows you to ‘tweet’ which involved contacting other people with Twitter with the use of the ‘@’ symbol for example @SimonMatthewsBlog. Other ‘tweeters’ can follow you, re-tweet you or favourite your tweets.

Advantages:

Twitter is easy to join: takes less than a minute to create an account with Twitter and start ‘tweeting’

Twitter is easy to use: twitter limits its updates to 140 characters, so there’s no need to launch into long-winded prose or to over-explain your thoughts.

Twitter can be anonymous: unlike Facebook, which insists that you can use your ‘real name’ whereas Twitter allows you to choose any available user name you’d like

Disadvantages

Impersonal Relationships: it is not uncommon to hear someone boast about how many followers they have on Twitter.

Internet Predators: As with any social platforms provided through an online service, subscribers can fall prey to predators

Time Consumption: Twitter can consumer your time. Work, real social interactions and rest can all suffer if you are always tweeting.

Personal Experience:

I have recently created a Twitter account and I find it extremely entertaining. Unlike Facebook and other social networking sites there is always something going on, it also allows me to receive news from celebrities that I follow.

MySpace

MySpace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. MySpace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverley Hills, California. MySpace has many features such as: Bulletins, Groups, MySpace IM (Instant Messenger), MySpace TV and MySpace News.

Advantages:

Easy Access

Easy profile customization

Includes Blogging

International

User Friendly

Disadvantages:

Many fake identified users

Privacy

Safety

Security

Stalkers

Personal Experience:

I do not actually have a MySpace account but I have heard that it is a great way to communicate and express your views; it is also very closely knit with the Pop Music culture of today.

Forums 

An Internet Forum, or Message Board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from other sites such as chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived. Also depending on the access level of a user or the forum set-up a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible.

Advantages:

You can start up a topic and discuss it with other people in the forum

You can post up different types of media

A moderator can edit and reply to other peoples posts to control the forums

Disadvantages:

Anyone can spam on the forums if not controlled by a moderator

Disagreements may occur and cause cyber fights.

Personal Experience:

I personally have used forums mostly for educational purposes. If you post a question on a sight such as wiki answers then you can receive feedback from professionals or experts in the field that you are asking the question about.

SMS – Smart phones 

One of the most unexpected ‘killer applications’ of the digital age has been the Short Messaging Service (SMS) or text messaging to the less technologically experienced people. SMS was originally devised to utilise the slack times in mobile phones transmissions to send short bursts of textual data; it has become the chosen means of communication for many people over the use of phone calls. SMS has become so popular with the public that a Short Messaging Language has been introduced with abbreviations and informal phonics such as BRB meaning Be Right Back and LOL which translates to Laugh Out Loud.

Advantages:

Private between you and the recipient

Quick and easy to do

Can get very quick replies

Disadvantages

Must have a mobile phone and phone signal

  Some people may prefer to talk in person

  Can make people feel isolated

Personal Experience

I can honestly say I am a ‘serial texter’ I all way have my phone on me and I am always texting, I find it so quick and easy to do; and with people my age in today’s age you usually get an instant reply. 

Blogs

Blogs or weblogs are a specialised form of website created for the purpose of keeping an online journal. Early on they replaced the personal home pages that any individuals kept to amuse and inform friends and family, or other individuals with similar interests. In order to keep blogs up to date and interesting, in a way that personal home pages rarely were, systems have evolved to facilitate easy posting of material. This usually involves a blog editor interfaced to a database system that:

Manages the posts

Manages links to other articles and websites

Archives old material

Allows for comments to be made on posts

Famous blogs such as the Huffington Post has received up to 26 million Unique Visitors in 1 month! (http://www.huffingtonpost.com)

Advantages

Blogging is really easy

Blogs can be set up quickly

Blogs are search engine friendly

Disadvantages

Need to keep it constantly updated otherwise you lose potential readers

Easy to start, hard to maintain.

Personal Experience

I am using www.blogger.com to set up and use my blog. I find having a blog very rewarding as you can seeing how many page views you have received and if you have any comments, although it does take a lot of maintenance it is worth it when you post each blog post.

Instant Messaging/ Chat 

Chat covers a range of scenarios across a range of different networking including:

Internet relay chat (IRC) – an open protocol no controlled by any one provider

Web-based  chat offered by ISPs (e.g. BT of Freeserve)

Website based chat offered by anyone with a site.

Chat rooms using SMS on mobile phones.

Instant Messaging also allows you to interact with other users in real time. It is usually more private than chat rooms, allowing a group of people to converse in real time without being snooped on by anyone they don’t specifically allow into the conversation. IM services allow two or more participants to communicate at the same time. 

Advantages:

Its free conversation can be held with another person without running up a large bill.

Messages are sent in real-time

Files and pictures can be sent in instant messaging conversations.

Disadvantages:

Messages can be intercepted

Virus via file transfers is possible

Can be distracting and time consuming

Personal Experience:

I used to use sites like MSN a lot more than I do now, I found them easy and fun to use; you can also use a webcam whilst you talk to friends which makes it more like a real conversation.

Podcast Logo 

Podcasts 

A podcast is a type of digital media consisting of an episodic series of audio video subscribed to and downloaded through the web.

According to the Apple iTunes Store in the UK the Top 5 most downloaded podcasts are

1. Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
2. Comedy of the Week from BBC Radio 4
3. Best of Chris Moyles from BBC Radio 1
4. Desert Island Discs with Kirsty Young from BBC Radio 4
5. The Infinite Monkey Cage from BBC Radio 4

Advantages:

Available anytime/ anywhere

Easy to create

New podcasts and auto-downloaded

Disadvantages:

Entire file is downloaded

Need sufficient space to download podcast

No interactivity.