cct300-lab6

The internet was always created as a mode of communication between two people or several groups. What began as email has now evolved into a social experience. Every social communication website, including email, tries to provide an enhanced experience to its users making the experience as interactive as possible. What has changed though in the past few years is the style of communication. We have gone from a one-to-one communication via email and instant messaging. to a "broadcast" style of communication, where people are encouraged to spread their message to their friends and followers, and even to the world.

The question is where did this phenomenon began. My theory is that broadcast communication began with the introduction of "commenting". Authors and journalists of popular websites posted their viewpoints using articles. Users would then comment on the article, expressing their agreements or arguments with the author. This created further communication when another user would argue or agree with the first commenter by posting another comment. With the presence of Twitter, people are now able to broadcast their message to the world, with the goal of possibly attracting followers. Celebrities have taken advantage of Twitter because they no longer have to get their manager to submit press releases to news services. They can just post it on their Twitter and their thousands of followers now know when their next movie or CD is coming out. Around 2008, Facebook noticed the broadcasting style of communication on Twitter was getting popular. Hence, they decided to place less emphasis on wall posts and more emphasis on people telling the world what they're upto. They have taken it one step further with the "Like" functionality, which is a very subtle form of communication, but still is a very quick way for a user to give his opinion without necessarily writing a comment.