The Future

Firstly, i'll share with you a video on multi-touch computing.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

The internet is still relatively young and evolution of it is awaiting. The development of the Internet's bandwidth and speed will determine how much changes we can expect. The cost of Internet will also drop, and the quality of audio, images and surfing the web will improve across all platforms. Not forgetting, integration will be the most important factor for the convenience and speed. We will want our phones to be connected to our computer, and everything i guess!

We have seen futuristic scenes like this in movies like Minority Report:

Another video by TED - Sixth Sense

It's still quite amazing and i can't really see myself using all this technology yet. It'll probably be another 10 years and more before we see all this taking place in everyday lives.

In local perspective, our Singapore government has something planned too: iN2015

Experience the future now, here.

Linkedin

I've heard briefly about Linkedin quite some time back, but didn't get down to registering for it. I had thought then that it isn't relevant to me yet, that i wouldn't have any connections there since it's more for people who are working already. True enough, i only have 2 connections now, as compared to my 700+ on Facebook.

However, i believe that as i step into the working world, my Linkedin connections will greatly increase. Number 1, that's the purpose of Linkedin right?

As stated from Linkedin "About Us" page, "Our mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. We believe that in a global connected economy, your success as a professional and your competitiveness as a company depends upon faster access to insight and resources you can trust."

Number 2, i would not want my colleague or boss or business associates to see pictures and videos of my personal life.

And besides individuals, there are also profile pages for companies. That's interesting i would say, with current employees or ex-employees or just hired employees of the companies listed there too!

And now! For the battle between Facebook and Linkedin!

Facebook and Linkedin are so different! One is for personal social networking while the other is a professional networking site. They serve different functions and have different target users. For Facebook, kids as young as 9 or 10 may start using it but for Linkedin, they wouldn't want kids that young to join. Linkedin is like an online platform to search for potential employers or employees, for friends' or business partners' recommendations. Under your profile page in Facebook, your hobbies, favourite song/movie/tv show so on and so forth are listed. But for Linkedin, they're more interested in your specialties, your past education and working experiences. It's an online resume. That said, i believe both sites can coexist and there shouldn't be any rivalry.

How does Internet shape the future of journalism?

It's been said that Internet kills journalism; that people are now getting their dose of news online, whether through news websites or Twitter even. I mean it's true that there is a fall in the number of readership for print articles, but the market is still there. There is a balance between journalism on traditional media and the Internet now.

But i agree that traditional form of articles may not be enough anymore. There is a greater need for the additional features that the Internet can provide: events can be documented live, people can discuss and leave their comments with others, and more information on this topic can be linked directly. These interactions are important to people now. Besides, articles are usually published earlier and faster on the Internet now! We no longer have to wait till the next day for the news to appear on the newspaper. Our curiosity and needs can be satisfied almost instantaneously.

In addition, the Internet has started another type of journalism. It is citizen journalism. The largest and most successful one has got to be Wikipedia. Open publishing, collaborative editing and distributed content are 3 important elements. Twitter and YouTube are also good platforms for this. The famous example is the 2009 Iranian election protests where Twitter played an important role. Real life updates of the situation were published from the Iranians themselves when foreign journalism were restricted.