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One thing I hated most about Second Life (SL) is it's ORIENTATION ISLAND!!! i got stuck with it for like 3 times, re-did their tutorial, especially MOVE for like umpteen of times!!! But finally, i got through all of them!

It's me infront of the Pernakan Corner's Door.

Showcasing the arts and culture of the Straits Chinese in Asia and Singapore
Area: 3840 sq. m.
Hyperborea 233, 207, 23

(2) Singapore Virtual Xin Pat Sat (Retrofitting)

Aerial View of Xin Pat Sat. Still quite empty though.

A taste of the Singapore Marketplace in SL. Radar, Bunkers, Military, Missile, Designer, Food, Chicken Rice, Asia, Builder

Familiar right!! It's Singapore's Bus Stop with our SBS Transit Bus!!!

Didn't get the chance to visit virtual MoS. It was closed when i was there!

Minstry of Sound Night Club
Area: 32768 sq. m.
Glee 113, 179, 35

About Landmark: Singapore

I can see that the builders of Singapore are trying to build a Second Life Singapore with landmarks that we Singaporeans are familiar with. I saw our SBS bus, our local bus stops, Suntec's Fountain of Wealth, Peranaken Houses and our local scene of coffeeshops, those old open shop concept where you will sip your hot coffee under trees while you talk and catch up with your fellow friends.

When i first saw the hawker stalls in Second Life, i laughed! "What? Hawker stalls in Second Life? Hahaha... What are they gonna sell?". I can't wait for the stall owners to come in with their food most probaly Singapore Delicies like Laksa, Char Kway Teow, Chicken Rice?

It does gets more interesting when i see places that i am familiar with. I feel less lost. It gives you a feeling of home in "Second Life". Perhaps those Singaporeans that are not residing in Singapore would find SL bringing them closer to home with our popular landmarks in Singapore.

Hopefully in the near future we'll see HDB flats and other memorable lankmarks from Singapore in Second Life!

Labels: COM125 Assignments

The Idea of Stomp

STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile Print) is an integration of content and activities of three platforms of print, online and mobile, to interact and engage with Singaporeans in new and exciting ways (STOMP, 2006).

STOMP wants to engage their readers in areas which appeal to them, thus providing readers with new avenues to express and interact among themselves. STOMP wants to be a forum of lively discussions, from topics ranging from national issues to where to get the best food.

Citizen Journalism??

Citizen Journalism also known as participatory journalism, as the words suggests, is the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information (“Citizen Journalism”, 2007). The intent of citizen journalism is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires (Bowman & Willis. 2007).

STOMP and Citizen Journalism

One first look at STOMP’s website, reminds me of Singapore Press Holding’s second highest circulating paid English-language newspaper, The New Paper. The New Paper targets readers with eye-catching tabloid style journalism coupled with sensational headlines (The New Paper, 2007) because these are what Singaporeans likes and wants to read. Singaporeans have a liking for gossip or anything new. This is why Singaporeans have been labeled as, “kaypohs”, meaning busybodies.

Thus, STOMP is using the nature of the “kaypoh” phenomenon and citizen journalism to generate news. So instead of just hanging around looking at something has happened, people take photos, send them to STOMP, and the rest of Singapore will comment over it.

Ugly Commuters = Ugly Singapore

There was this section of “Singapore Seen” there is this section, “Ugly Commuters”, whereby Singaporeans take photos and even videos of ugly commuters of the public transport of Singapore. A few quick clicks around the other sections of “Singapore Seen”, shows that the page views of each “article” of “Ugly Commuters” are viewed in terms of thousands of views, as compared to the rest of the sections of “Singapore Seen” which are only viewed in hundreds of views.

Firstly, this portrays how ugly Singaporeans can be on public transports, but, I personally feel that it is a disgrace to Singaporeans. Singaporeans are kicking a fuss over some other stuff that others have done. And with the set up of STOMP, Singaporeans have found an avenue of disgracing those that has not been behaving well in public. Take a look at the “articles” on “Ugly Commuters”, you have pictures and videos of people occupying more than one seat, people blasting their music out loud, people falling asleep, unwilling commuters that do not want to give up seats to the elderly or the pregnant women and people crowding over the entrance of MRTs. I felt that people are fussing over this kind of small matters that happens throughout the whole world. It is just the way people are. You might think that you are the most considerate being in the world but some others might not consider that. I’m very sure that people in the other side of the world, for example, in Japan, you would also meet some commuters that hog more than one seat.

Lastly, imagine someone taking a photo or video of you doing something peculiar, and your faces have not been mosaic? I feel that it disturbs my privacy a lot. Some might say that, if you dare to do something, you should dare to let others catch you in action. But, I feel, every image taken should at least seek for the permission of the person in the picture or video before releasing out into the public domain.

Thus…

As the title go, “Singapore Seen”, does everyone wants to be seen like what some of the other Singaporeans? Will these Singaporeans be willing or unwilling to be seen? Will STOMP invade the privacy of the “victims” of the photographs? I personally feel that it is good that Singaporeans are involved in Citizen Journalism, but, please be involved in news that are meaningful and not invasive.

References

Bowman, S. and Willis, C. (2003). We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. The Media Center at the American Press Institute.

Citizen Journalism. (2007, January). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 31, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism

Gillmor, D. (2004, July). We the Media: Chapter 1, 3 & 9. Retrieved March 30, 2007 from http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html

Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. (2006). About Us. Retrieved March 31, 2007 from http://www.stomp.com.sg/about/about.html

The New Paper. (2007, January, 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 31, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Paper

Labels: COM125 Assignments

About ‘Singapore Politics’

Title: Singapore Politics
URL: http://singaporegovt.blogspot.com
Owner: Thrasymachus
Occupation: Citizen Blogger
Blog’s Date of Birth: June 27, 2005
Technorati Rank: 139, 300 (58 links from 31 blogs)

This is one blog that many of my friends have used for this assignment. Maybe perhaps because when you search for “politics” together with “blog” in Yahoo! Search, you will find this blog returned as the first few results of your search. Perhaps, the Technorati Rank for this Singapore Politics blog will increase dramatically.

This blogger, Thrasymachus, took a very neutral view about the politics in Singapore. It gives me the feeling that this blog could tell me more about the political scene in Singapore, instead of discrediting or bad mouthing. This blogger acts like a commentator about the political scene in Singapore, having views on their career and political life. This blog is very interesting. I wonder how much time this blogger has took to research and analyze about what ever that is in Singapore political scene.

Democracy & Internet & Blog

“The government will continue to set political agendas and rules of engagement in the face of the new media, and will not be dictated by online petitions or polls,” said Dr Vivian Balakrisnan at the Foreign Correspondents Association lunch on the government’s approach to the new media (Majid, 2007).

Now, the government wants to control our freedom of speech in the cyberspace. The Second Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts added that the government would not hesitate to prosecute those who post seditious or racially offensive content in cyberspace.

How is democracy’s going to be achieved when every part of our life is controlled by our government? We have to watch what we say or else, we will be prosecuted. But sometimes, things work in the way as in the more you do not wish to comment about some things, the more you will experience the certain matter appearing in front of you. Giving you the adrenaline and the guts to voice out your opinion, especially now, you could simply achieve that by switching on your computer, logging on to blogger and start rattling on what you have to say.

The role of traditional media, such as television, magazines and newspapers, in modern democracy is increasingly problematic, and serious questions have arisen about its capacity as a site for political criticism or rational debate (Thornton, 2002). Then, how about the new media, such as the Internet and its blog? Modern democracy would be much more problematic than the traditional one and more serious questions, criticism would arise, given the easy accessibility of the Internet.

One view that I personally agree with Dr Vivian Balakrishnan is what he has to say about the present amount of offensive and untrue material in cyberspace, that there is no need, nor it is practical, to pursue each and every transgression (Majid, 2007). In fact, there are way too many comments about that. But how is the government going to filter and pursue what the government deems as racially offensive or seditious. From what I know, there are way too many videos and clips made about racism. How is the government stopping that?

In conclusion, democracy in the internet is definitely something that is really hard to achieve, nevertheless, blogs. A blog is like a personal diary. It holds comments about our true self and our views on our life. Sometimes, it is just not that people like to raise racism comments, it is just about the way people are.

Reference

Majid, H.A. (2007, March 22). Government sets rules of engagement in face of new media. Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved March 24, 2007 from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/265682/1/.html

Thornton, A. (2002, October). Does Internet Create Democracy. Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.zip.com.au/%7Eathornto/thesis_2002_alinta_thornton.doc

Labels: COM125 Assignments

"Don't Worry! I Don't Take Picture, I Take VIDEO!"

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzOGCTHqP6Y

This one video I have chosen is one typical video that you will see or even experience in the roads of Singapore, especially when you are involved in an accident. Hot headed drivers shouting vulgarities at each other, all shouted in the fit of anger? Do they really mean it? Some might even get of their vehicles to pick up a fight. When in a fit of anger, one could even kill a person.

That’s the reason why, with the convenience of camera phones, people take videos of the confrontation that would be going to take place. It could be acts to safe guard themselves, if anything was to go wrong or a legal case is filed. These videos would act as a form of evidence to protect themselves. For this particular video, there was evidence of criminal intimidation and road rage, in which the lorry driver could pursue and present the case to the Police. Apparently, the motorists was traveling on the middle white line and the lorry driver horned to alert the biker that the lorry was going to overtake him but the motorist did not hear it. The lorry got nearer to the motorist and the Indian motorist got agitated and stopped the lorry to confront the lorry driver.

I’m not trying to be racist or what, but I felt that the tone that the Indians started off was way too much. They approach the lorry driver greeting them with vulgarities. Who would like it? Instead of hurling vulgarities back, the Chinese lorry driver was calm and I really applaud the way he handled the situation.

Everything was put to an end with the involved apologizing to each other. But when the Indian realized that the Chinese passenger was taking a video of the whole confrontation, the Indian got even more pissed. One funny sentence that the Indian said was that he claimed that he knew what he was doing, but actual fact, I doubt he knows.

I feel that the Indian might be intimidated when he realized that the whole confrontation was video-taped. He even suggested to the Chinese passenger to put his picture in the press. But I feel that he do not mean it as he was very angry at that time. Perhaps upon reflection, he feels that he might be in the wrong.

This video is an example of sousveillance, meaning bringing the camera or other means of observation down to human level, either physically or hierarchically (Wikipedia, 2007). It was discovered that sousveillance can cause conflict and sometimes confrontation (Wikipedia, 2007) and this is what exactly happened in the case of the video.

One could easily take videos, with the ease of camera phones. Thus, whenever one is in this kind of situation similar to the video, one should just be careful of what he or she is talking about because you will never know who is videotaping the whole incident down.

Reference:

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. (2007, 7 February). Sousveillance. Retrieved March 8, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sousveillance&printable=yes

Labels: COM125 Assignments

Friendster ...

Friendster, where you find; search old friends, classmates or anyone, connect; view profiles and grow your network and stay in touch; getting friend updates, share photos and videos (Friendster, 2007). These may sound like great reasons for you to sign up for a Friendster account. But how much truth will you put into these kinds of online social network accounts?

It depends on the purpose of setting up this kind of social network accounts and I should use Friendster as my case study. People set up Friendster primarily for three purposes. The first reason being, to maintain the contact with people that you know, for example, your workplace colleagues, classmates or even relatives. Secondly, to make more friends through Friendster by visiting their Friendster profiles. Lastly, to find their old friends, provided they have signed up with Friendster.

How much information do you intend to put into your Friendster profile? For my own personal Friendster account, I could say that the information that I have put up are brief descriptions of what I am truly am and what I am doing currently. The information that I put up are all real information of mine, as I feel, my friends, would really want to know how am I doing and likewise, I would in turn also want to know how they are doing without having to ask them.

According to Rosen (Rosen, 2005), in this age of the internet, we are increasingly forced to interact with strangers whom we will never meet face-to-face, and as a result, individuals find themselves in more and more situations where they feel pressure to reveal details of their personal lives without being able to gauge the audience’s reaction. Thus, this pressure pressurizes people to divulge personal and truthful information about them.

Nobody likes anyone who deceives people. Thus, imagine you putting false information of yourself on your Friendster profile, and your friend sees it and one day, and realizes that what ever you have put on Friendster is all a hoax. What will you friend see you from then on? Definitely, the impression of you in your friend will definitely change drastically. “Trust is built faster and maintained longer when people believe you are being real, not putting on a false front to cover up what’s really going on inside of you. When it comes to relationships, authenticity is what others say they want most from us and we make the most lasting and vivid impressions when people witness us being true to our beliefs, staying in alignment with who and what we really are” (Rosen, 2005).

Thus, people tend to divulge their real information about themselves because they would not want to be in the dilemma of deceiving others. I myself feel that there’s nothing to hide about my own self. One important thing when creating these kinds of Friendster profiles is knows what you want to let the whole world to know. For example, if you do not wish to tell people where is your workplace, then do not put in down. Keep it blank. Feel how your friends will feel when they find out that you are reading something that is so not true. Sometimes, trying to fake information is not as easy as what you think. You have to think hard on what you want to replace this real information with the fake information.

Authenticity refers to the psychology concept in which the individual derives gratification and positive emotions from excercising signature strengths (Wikipedia, 2007). Last but not the least, one tip that I would give to people when creating Friendster profiles is you divulge your personal information only if you are comfortable on letting others know, otherwise, leave it blank or use a metaphor. Authenticity of information increases trust and likewise, false information decreases trust.

References:

Friendster. (2007). Friendster – Home. Friendster, Inc. Retrieved March 10, 2007 from http://www.friendster.com/

Rosen, J. (2004). The Naked Crowd. Retrieved March 9, 2007, from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. (2007, 10 March). Authenticity (Philospohy). Retrieved March 10, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticity_%28philosophy%29

Labels: COM125 Assignments

This is one example of a spam mail that I have recently received. This lucky spam mail escaped in my spam filter and appeared in my inbox. But why do people spam especially through emails? Email accounts are free and easy to sign up and more importantly, you get the email account instantly. There is no waiting time. Email is also very cheap to send, in fact, if you are using those free accounts from Yahoo or Google, they are free to use but with limitations to the amount of mails you send in a day to prevent users from spamming. People spam for business, for popularity, for acknowledgement, for advertisements and the more lethal ones, spam viruses.

The first commercial spamming, “Green Card Spam”, appeared in March 5, 1994, where a pair of lawyers began using bulk Usenet posting to advertise immigration law services. The pair went on to promote spamming of both Usenet and email as a new means of advertisement. Within a few years, the focus of spamming and anti-spam efforts moved chiefly to email, where it remains up till today (“Spam (Electronic)”, 2007).

According to Wikipedia, ensuring a valid identity on an email has become a vital first step in stopping spam. An essential second step will be ensuring the entity has a good reputation (“E-Mail Authentication”, 2007). But I personally feel, it is quite a difficult task on ensuring valid identities in email, as I myself have several anonymous email accounts to protect myself from my personal information. But as long as I do not abuse the services of the email, I believe it’s alright as I’m protecting myself.

References:

Spam (Electronic). (2007, February 21). Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. Retrieved February 23, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_mail#Messaging_spam

Donath, J.S. (1996, November 12). Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. Retrieved February 23, 2007 from http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

E-mail Authentication. (2007, February 10). Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. Retrieved February 23, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_authentication

Labels: COM125 Assignments

An Introduction to Gift Economy

What is the notion of a gift economy? According to Wikipedia (“Gift Economy”, 2007), a gift economy is an economic system in which the prevalent mode of exchange is for goods and services to be given without explicit agreement upon a quid pro quo (the Latin term for the concept of "a favor for a favor". That is, the rule of reciprocity is not expected in a gift economy. The rule of reciprocity requires that one person try to repay, what another person has provided (Cialdini, 1985).

An Example of a Gift Economy

Anime groups are a great example for gift economies. One anime group that I often patronize is AnimeSuki (AnimeSuki, 2007) and I shall use AnimeSuki as my main idea of a gift economy for this assignment. I visit this anime group a lot because I felt that this is the most comprehensive, has the most anime fans participating, and most importantly, AnimeSuki is regularly updated, thus if I want information on the latest anime, I would definitely get information as people will be discussing it over at the forums.

Justification of AnimeSuki as an Example of a Gift Economy

Rheinegold has described interaction in one online community as consisting of a gift economy, in which help and information is offered without the expectation of any direct, immediate quid-pro-quo. That is, free help and information were given out to complete strangers whom one might never meet again (as cited in Kollock, 1999). In AnimeSuki, there is a forum whereby the community of AnimeSuki will be answering to all your questions. The forum is split up into 4 main subjects, ‘Anime Discussion’, ‘Anime Related Topics’, ‘AnimeSuki & Technology’ and ‘General’. For example if I want to find out what are the current most popular anime that is currently airing, I will choose Anime Discussion’s ‘Current Series’. There, they list the current most popular anime and I can choose which one I’m interested in. And let say I have any questions to ask, I can post and ask a questions and the friendly and helpful anime fans will reply to my question with no strings attached.

Another great part of AnimeSuki is that I get to download the latest Anime. But there’s something that I need to clarify first, which is the licensing of anime which affects the copyright law. As explained in AnimeSuki (“Licensed Anime”, 2007), the copyright law is definitely violated under the WTO Trips Agreement, but the TRIPS agreement does not demand that distribution of copyrighted material is a criminal offence unless it is done on a commercial sale meaning that it is up to the copyright holder to bring the offence to court. AnimeSuki added that fansub groups like AnimeSuki do not have to worry about the legal pressure from Japan but rather from the US companies as they are more likely to sue. Thus, if something is licensed, the licensee holds the copyright and thus the right to sue any copyright infringers within the area covered by the license. Thus, AnimeSuki only provide links to unlicensed anime and they do also keep an updated list of licensed and unlicensed anime. But who provides the links to all these Bit Torrents? Animesuki does not, but anime fan do. AnimeSuki link to sites of the anime fan and not the Bit Torrents files directly. And these anime fans are generous to share their files with other anime fans through fansubs like AnimeSuki.

Thus, AnimeSuki, is an online community, which provides help and information to complete strangers - in which these strangers accidentally or deliberately browse upon AnimeSuki, through links or searches - without any obligations.

Why People Contribute?

One question that ponders upon me a lot is why people contribute. Kollock (Kollock, 1999) explained that there are motivations for contributing. The motivating factors that intrigue people to contribute are anticipated reciprocity, reputation, sense of efficacy, need and attachment. And these motivating factors are rest on self-interest.

People contribute because they hope that when they need help, others will help them back, and this is anticipated reciprocity. Kollock (Kollock, 1999), states that someone should not simply take without ever contributing to the group and that people who regularly offer advice and information seem to receive more help more quickly when they ask for something. Thus people are more willing to contribute, in favor of hoping that when one day they need help, people will help.

By presenting high quality information, impressive technical details in one’s answers, a willingness to help others and elegant writing, could help increase one’s prestige or rather reputation in a community. Thus, thus the desire for prestige urges people to contribute more.

A sense of efficacy is a sense that an individual has some effect on the community’s environment. Thus by making regular and high-quality contribution to a community, it will show to the community that this person is an efficacious people, through the image that the individual portrays to the community.

One may contribute because the community or a person needs it. Thus, if there’s a need for something, an individual might contribute or produce something that the person or community needs to satisfy that need.

Last but not the least, the attachment or rather commitment one can have to the group are also motivating factors for people to contribute. People feels attached to the community and feels that he or she must do the utmost for the community.

Conclusion

I’m glad that gift economies, such as AnimeSuki exists. Because of their existence, people could find answers to their questions easily. Everyone benefits from it. I would no longer fret over a problem because I know where I can go to, especially for questions on anime.

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References:

AnimeSuki. (2007). AnimeSuki Forum. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from http://forums.animesuki.com/

AnimeSuki. (2007). Licensed Anime @ AnimeSuki.com. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from http://www.animesuki.com/doc.php/licensed/

Cialdini, R. B. (1985). Study: Recruitment, Influence/Ciadini. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from http://www.csj.org/studyindex/studyrecruit/study_influence.htm

Gift Economy. (2007, February 4). Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

Kollock, P. (1999). The economies of online cooperation: Gifts and public goods in cyberspace. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm

Labels: COM125 Assignments

(Source: http://www.mp3search.com)

Napster do also have a similar problem about file-sharing before but now they had worked with Microsoft and have embedded a new function, a Napster Online Store, into the new Windows Media Player whereby users can download music at a fee through Windows Media Player, just like iTunes, a similar program by Apple, that manages one’s music library and also sells licensed music at a fee.
How can we not get sued for file sharing? Is it possible? From an article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) (EFF, 2006), EFF advises users to make sure that there are no potentially infringing files in the shared folder, remove all potentially misleading file names that might confuse with the name of an RIAA artist or song and disable the ‘Sharing’ or ‘Uploading’ function of the peer-2-peer application. EFF has also created a petition against RIAA from filing legal suits, to propose as a solution to get artists paid while protecting peer-2-peer file sharing and instead of RIAA filing endless lawsuits, create a rational, legal means by which its customers can take advantage of file sharing technology and pay a fair price for the music they love (EFF:RIAA Petition, 2006).

By making the public pay for their music and recording industries do their part by allowing file-sharing but with terms and conditions could salvage the situation of finding a win-win situation for everyone. Only through this, then the subject of illegal file-sharing could be put to an end.

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REFERENCES:

Litman, Jessica, (2003, November 23). Sharing and Stealing, Social Science Research Network, 4, 31. Retrieved January 18, 2007, from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=472141.

Associated Press. (2007, January 31). NY Boy Sued by Music Companies Responds. Yahoo! Asia News. Retrieved on February 3, 2007, from http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070131/ap/d8n01oj01.html.

Oberholzer-Gee, F., & Strumpf, K. (2005, June). The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales; An Empirical Analysis. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 35-36. Retrieved January 18, 2007 from http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_June2005_final.pdf.

Mp3search.com. (2006). Information on using p2p safely. Mp3search.com. Retrieved February 3, 2007 from http://mp3search.com/.

EFF. (2006). How to Not Get Sued for File Sharing. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved February 3, 2007 from http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/howto-notgetsued.php.

EFF. (2006). RIAA Petition. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved February 3, 2007 from http://www.eff.org/share/petition/.

Labels: COM125 Assignments

Internet technologies have a great impact on our lives. In fact, some internet technologies that we only start using now have been present even before the day I was born. It’s the development of the technology that makes us aware of the internet technology. One internet technology that has gone through big changes is the present day internet forum.

Let us think for a moment, what do people call internet forums, before they where names internet forums? The first emergence of forums is a moderated newsgroup. According to Wikipedia, a moderated newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations and has one or more individuals who must approve articles before they are posted at large. The first moderated newsgroup was introduced on USENET in 1984. Usenet or rather USEr NETwork is a global, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP(Unix to Unix CoPy)-a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers- network of the same name.

Newsgroups allow individuals to choose their own messages and post on anything of their interests. Newsgroups are subjected to sporadic flame wars and trolling, but they can also be a valuable source of information, support and friendship, bringing people interested in specific subjects together from different continents. Now, weblogs (our present day blogs) have replaced some of the uses of newsgroups for a while as they prevented spamming.

Now, Internet forums are the past newsgroups. According to Wikipedia, an internet forum is a facility on the World Wide Web for holding discussions and posting user generated content, or the web application software used to provide the facility. Note the evolvement of newsgroups to internet forums, the difference is that internet forums now, they are not moderated, so there is more leeway for discussions and postings. But there are still administrators and moderators who will “take care” of the forums. Administrators have the ability to close the board, change major software items, change the skin, modify the board, ban, delete, or create members. Moderator privileges are often able to be delegated or given to other forum members. These moderators have lesser privileges than the administrators. Their main job is to help the administrators to manage the forum.

Internet forums are also known as message boards, web forums, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards, or forums.

Forums (Electronic discussion groups) have also made their way through integration of other software to aid as tools to facilitate the software. One example that we, University of Buffalo students will get to use often is, the Blackboard, by Blackboard Inc. Blackboard develops and license software applications and related services to education institutions. These institutions use Blackboard software to manage e-learning, transaction processing and e-commerce, and online communities. Through the ‘Discussion’ tool, we students are able to post questions to ask questions according to subject which enables easy lookup. Lecturers could also post questions and students could reply the post with the answers to facilitate interaction even after school hours.

Through the evolvement and changes that internet forums have, we users of the internet benefited a lot, be it academically or socially. Internet technologies will never stop changing thanks to the constant advances in technology. So what will the future be like for internet forums? Will it be so interactive that it develops into a “video conferencing forum group”? The future holds in our hands.

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References:

Robert H. Zakon. (2007, November). Hobbe’s Internet Timeline. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2235.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2007, January 9). UUCP. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2006, September). Usenet. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2007, January 11). Newsgroup. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2007, January). Internet forum. Retrieved January 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_forum.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2007, January 26). Blackboard Inc. Retrieved January 27, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.

Blackboard Inc. (2007). Blackboard Communities. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://www.blackboard.com/communities/.

Labels: COM125 Assignments