Evolution of communications
Iv been asked this question a few times when being interviewed about what I like about the internet – and one of the main things I respond with is the evolution of communications. Long gone are the days where you have to wait weeks to hear back from a friend on the other side of the world, where you have to carefully plan the time zone differences and risk calling someone on another continent when they might be asleep / waking up / not at home.
Nowerdays with RSS Feeds, twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc, you can keep up to date with all the latest goings on, while your at work, while you walk down to the shops, while you travel across the country on a train. Online communications has revolutionised the way news is broadcast across the world – no longer do certain news publishers say they have “exclusive” information – like the Mumbai terrorist attacks – updates were sent, on average, every 5 seconds regarding the attacks.
Twitter seems to have attracted a bunch of celebrities, from Alan Carr (@AlanCarr), to BoJo (@MayorOfLondon) – which breaks down another barrier when following your favourite celebrity, which in my case is Lance Armstrong – I no longer have to scour the net, seeing if he has appeared anywhere, I no long have to stay up till 3am watching Eurosport 3 reruns of the Giro d’Italia to see if he won it and where he placed, I can simply read his Twitter stream, and watch a few of his pre race video’s. I can get (near to) live updates on what he’s upto, and a bunch of other people I follow.
The social media phenomenon also breaks down a few other barriers – I no longer look at Paramedics with fascination and wonder “What is their job REALLY like?” – I read a bunch of medical blogs, from Random Acts of Reality (Tom, if your reading this, you are my hero <3 ) to NeeNaw – and its such a great insight into something that everyone takes for granted. I have alot more admiration and respect for the public services, after reading the amount of crap they have to deal with, especially from drunk / drugged up members of the public.
There are down sides to this evolution of communications though – I am now less “pro active” when it comes to communicating with friends, to see what’s going on with their life. For the friends I have on Facebook, I just load up the Facebook homepage, and see what’s the latest goings on with them. I no longer need to write to my friends (who are on FB at least) and ask them how they are doing, and what iv been upto lately – its all on my stream, in pretty much as real time as I care to update it.
I still love this evolution of communications though. Everything is interlinked, everything is in the now.
