Future of the Internet

Internet. In today's world, almost everything is about the Internet, be it for work or leisure. Everything is easily accessible via the world wide web, and it has been so integrated into our lives that most of us can never imagine living without it. It seemed as if one would be handicapped if the Internet is down or inaccessible, and I totally agree with it. This is because with school work, registrations needed to be done via the Internet, one could imagine how inconvenient it will be if one is unable to get connected to the system.

As more and more people are getting comfortable with the existence of Internet and also satisfied with it being able to provide great convenience and accessibility, Internet now, can not only be accessed via laptops. It has also been integrated into mobile phones (SmartPhones), televisions, home appliances, etc, providing an unprecedented, nearly uniform level of integrated data communications.

Furthermore, with the high level of Internet usage today, Singapore has also catch up with this trend by installing island-wide wireless services which can be accessed to all Singaporeans in soon to come. There are 2 great advantages to such infrastructure:

1) There are no infrastructure start-up or maintenance costs other than the base stations

2) It allow users to stay connected even though they are at the other side of the island. Furthermore, users get to access faster services at vastly lower costs.

In addition, with the fast-paced city life that we are in, everything is about being fast and efficient, and thus not missing out having a high speed Internet connection. Most of us should have experienced being grumpy or frustrated when the Internet failed to load or get connected as fast as we expect it to be. As one always says "Time is Money". Every minute seemed so precious to us that everything around us has to be highly effective and efficient.

Therefore, to ensure its efficiency, the Internet 2 Project has been established.

Internet 2 Project

It is the consortium of more than 200 universities, government agencies, and private businesses collaborating to find ways to make the Internet more efficient and faster.

Their primary goals are to:

1) Create a leading edge of very-high speed network for national research community

2) Enhance revolutionary Internet applications

3) Ensure rapid transfer of new network services and applications to broader Internet community.

and the benefits of this project:

1) IP multicasting: It enables efficient delivery to data to many locations of a network

2) Latency Solutions: diffserv assigns different levels of priority to packets depending on type of data being transmitted.

3) Guaranteed service levels: Ability to purchase right to more data through network at guaranteed speed in return for higher fee.

All these might sound rather good and I do agree that it is a great help in increasing our working efficiency, and also allowing us to be more reachable and accessible as we move from place to place.

However, in my opinion, it might indirectly result in certain negative impact in terms of a person's development. As mentioned earlier, when one is exposed to a highly efficient environment, anything that moves slower than it is supposed to be, would result in one getting impatient and frustrated, and this is one problem that many city dwellers now would have faced. Hence, imagine if the future generation were exposed to an even more efficient technology, what would they become? They might forget to slow down or stop to appreciate some beautiful things around them. Everything is about time, efficiency and money.

Thus, the future of the Internet, its improvements, is it really a good or bad thing?

Usefulness of Social Networking sites for Business

In today's era, online shopping is the current 'in' thing, as one does not have to step out of the house, and go to a physical store to purchase items that one wants. Instead, with a click of the mouse, and after payment is being made, the item would than be delivered to one's home after a few days. Furthermore, with most of the younger generation being technology-savvy, online shopping seems to be staying in trend. Besides, most people would have an account to the social networking site be it Facebook or Friendster. Thus, setting up business via the social networking site is not an impossible task, and it could be rather useful.

This is because not only can one save up the cost of renting a physical store in one of the malls, one could also save up on the advertising fees. The only thing that one has to do is to set up a profile page, make it available for everyone to view, add a few personal friends, and they would than be your "advertisers", who would than introduce your profile page to their friends, perhaps through their "Wall" page, which is available on Facebook. After which, those who are interested or curious can simply enter your site with a click of the mouse, since it does not require much effort. Hence, if you are lucky enough, you might than be able to launch your first business deal if any of your friends, or your friends' friends are interested in the items that you are selling. Moreover, you could also add those users as your friends even though your might not know them. This might then increase your chances of having your profile being viewed, as you had already captured their attention.

In addition, as mentioned frequently, Internet is a powerful tool as it could make something be known quickly. Thus, if one were to make one's profile page available to everyone, those who are frequent social networking users might than just enter your site while going through the other users' profile pages. Therefore, they might once again be your potential customers.

Moreover, if these online customers find your items nice or useful they might introduce your site to their other friends. As mentioned earlier, most people now are technology-savvy, thus when they are using the Internet, they might just decide to pop by your site to take a look at the items that you are selling as it is easily accessible and does not take up much of their time.

However, there are of course disadvantages to it. This is because as mentioned the site can be reached by a click of the mouse, meaning that there are competitors whom are also just a click away. Therefore, it is important to make your profile page and items attractive enough to retain customers. Furthermore, the duration of the popularity of a social networking site is unpredictable. Thus, if a social networking site suddenly lose its popularity and most users move on to the other more popular site, one could actually lose his or her customers.

An example would be Friendster. Friendster used to be one of the more popular social networking site before Facebook started replacing it. Therefore, before that there were actually businesses done on the webpage of Friendster, and it seemed rather successful as one could see business deals being made through the comments made on the comment board of Friendster. However, when the Facebook trend started to rise, most users began to abandon Friendster and started using Facebook. As such, the businesses started on Friendster might began fail and be forced to close down. If not they would have to move on to the other sites such as blogspot.com or livejournal.com, and also to inform their customers about it so that they would continue to frequent their "shops". If not they might be easily forgotten as there are many other online shops around.

Bebo.com

Bebo.com is currently ranked as the 3rd most popular social networking site.
Just like any other social networking sites, it contains all the basic profile and networking features available in the other websites, such as the photobucket, comments board, instant messaging,etc.

Surprisingly, although Facebook might be ranked as the most popular social networking site, it has a lower percentile of users under the age of 18 in comparison to Bebo.

In my opinion, Bebo works very much the same way as Facebook, or Friendster, thus i feel that there is little difference in terms of its usefulness. This is because it is just another site for people to connect and stay in contact by adding he or she to one's friends list in the profile one created.

However, if one will to compare, I feel that Facebook would be a much better site in comparison to Bebo.

The reason why I say this is not because I am a Facebook user myself, but rather due to the way the page is organized. In my opinion, the way the Bebo profile page is organized is rather messy in comparison to that of Facebook's. For instance, it has the quizzes, comments, blogs sections all in a page, thus one might have to look through carefully to know what exactly are the stuff that are featured on that page. This is because even the headings are too small to notice if one were to just scroll and glance through the page. One might just notice that the profile page is filled with words.

Although Facebook might contain the same features, they are separated and located in different pages, therefore, it makes it easier for both users and viewers to locate them.

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3827076787

The above link is the access to one of the Bebo's member profile, which is opened to the public. Thus, one does not have to be a Bebo member to view his profile, just like that of Facebook. From his profile, one could actually make the comparison and see the contrast on how the page is displayed compared to Facebook.

Internet & Journalism

Internet communication had shifted from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.
What is Web 2.0 then?
For those of you who are still unaware of its definition. It is basically a set of applications and technologies that allows users to create, edit and distribute content; share preferences, bookmarks, and online personas; participate in virtual lives; and build online communities.

Thus, with this shift, the work of reporting news now not only belong to the professional journalists. There is now a term called the Citizen Journalism, in which normal citizens like us are also able to report the news online just like that of a journalist. It was said that the intention of this is to provide independent, reliable , accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.

In my opinion, how accurate, reliable and relevant can information from non-journalists be, and to what extent would one be able to accept a piece of news that was reported by normal citizens like us?



STOMP (Straits Times Online Mobile Print), is the interactive site of Singapore Straits Times that accepts reader-submitted news stories. This is suppose to a citizen journalism site created for Singaporeans. However, in my opinion, it is not very successful, as STOMP seems more like a gossip site, rather than one which reports relevant and accurate news.

Is STOMP 'Citizen Journalism'?



http://singaporemedia.blogspot.com/2006/07/is-stomp-citizen-journalism.html


The above link is a blog post created by a current associate professor at NTU, who is also journalist. She, too, criticized about STOMP being not good enough to be qualified as a citizen journalism, as it is unable to separate journalism posts from gossip. Furthermore, a commentor on her blog post also mentioned that Straits Times is perhaps just merely trying a little to hard to advertise STOMP.

In addition, although Wikipedia is not a citizen journalism site, it functions almost like one as it is also involves a Web 2.0 process. In which, citizens can post information on the website, and it is supposed to be rather accurate. However, it might not be the case. This is because Singapore's famous blogger, Xiaxue, once found news about her on Wikipedia, saying that she had met with a car accident in Texas, and died. Contrastingly, she is still much alive and kicking. Therefore, this goes to prove that when it comes to news reported by non-journalists, the credibility could be rather low.

Hence, in my point of view, there is still a long way to go for Singapore to have a more professional citizen journalism site. Furthermore, I would still prefer the work from a true journalist, as being nurtured in the profession, they should be subjected to provide citizens with a more accurate, and reliable and relevant news coverage. Therefore, I feel that journalists still have not truly lost their monopoly.

Internet & Politics

Obama & Maccain

Everyone should be well aware of who Barack Obama and John Mccain are by now.
Black versas white, I guess that most of you would think that Mccain would most likely be elected as the American President, as racial discrimination against the Blacks are rather obvious in the United States. Furthermore, Mccain has been the cabinet for a longer period of time in comparison to that of Obama. Thus, speaking in terms of experience, Maccain most probably had a higher chance of winning. However, surprisingly, Barack Obama did it! He won the election and is the first Black American to make it onto the presidential position.

Many of you might have been wondering how Obama did it. Well, he thrived through the use of one thing that Mccain lacked in. That is the use of INTERNET!

As we all know that the generation of today, most of them would be almost uninterested to be involved in politics, including me of course. Furthermore, with the invention of Internet and the mass usage of it now, involvement in the traditional media such as the television, radio had decreased tremendously. Therefore, if only traditional media is used in trying to gain popularity and increase one's vote, one might not neccessarily succeed, unlike before. Alternatively, if one is able to find a way to get the involvement and votes of the younger Americans, one would most likley be in the upper hand. This is what Barack Obama did, not only did he made use to the traditional media, he also publicized his campaign via the Internet to get the attention of the younger generation, encouraging them to cast their votes to him. And with the younger generation of who Obama is and what his speech is about, through the Internet, most of them casted their votes for him.

Contrastingly, Mccain only made use of the traditional media, and he also admitted in an interview that he did not know how to use neither the computer nor the Internet. He got most of his work done through the help of his secretary. In addition, to prove the powefulness of Internet, a video was made on Maccain, about the 10 facts that most of us most probably would not have known.

10 Facts That John Maccain Doesn't want you to Know:

This illustrated that Internet can either aid one in a positively way just like that of Obama, or make one sank further in the case of Maccain.

LG KF350 Ice Cream Phone Ad

Brief history of LG Group:
LG basically stands for "Lucky Goldstar", and it is South Korea's third largest conglomerate that produces electronics, chemicals, and telecommunication products. It also operates subsidiaries in over 80 countries.

LG KF350 Ice Cream Phone!


This is one of LG's latest cellphone products, before the current LG Lollipop Phone was introduced. In my opinion, this is a very smart move in introducing such a cellphone design to the market. As we all know that each year, different companies will come up with new cellphone products, emphasizing on their wonderful functions. However, they are have a similarity, that is the colors of the cellphones would usually come in 2 basic colors- Black or White, which in my point of view, is rather dull.

I feel that LG is smart to realise that in today's era almost all teenagers and young adults would at least own 1 cellphone. Furthermore, this group of people they usually do not need alot of functions in it except for the basic ones such as sms,radio,etc. More importantly, they love their cellphones to look cute, nice and different from the usual ones that we see on display. Therefore, although the cellphone may only consist of the basic functions, and despite it not being a touchscreen phone, I believe that it will have its own group of supporters.

In addition, it is this main point that make it stand out among other cellphones.

Thus, the introduction of LG KF350, looking at the design and colors, it is rather obvious that its target audience would be the teenagers and young adults, especially women.

In my opinion, I feel that this advertisement is an attention grabber. Due to the color, audio effects, graphics and animations used.

1. The color of the whole advertisement is in baby pink, which would be able to capture most of the audiences' attention as it is bright. Furthermore, it may appeal more to its target audiences.
2. The audio effects used are usually in line with the transitions of scenes in the ad, which hence be able to enhance the audiences' imagination about the cellphone.
3. Rather than having one to check out the functions of the phone, it provides audiences and potential consumers with the basic functions, making use of different colorful and cute graphics and animations to make the product seem more attractive than it might be in actual fact.
4. Simple sentences are shown in each scene, allowing the audiences to easily remember the main functions that it provides.
5. A female voice is used to introduce the theme "Lovely Sweet Ice Cream", to make the phone seem more appealing and to make the product seem really as sweet as an ice-cream.

Singapore: A Prime Target for Online Cyber Crime

In the news report, it stated that Singapore is a prime target for online cyber crime due to Singapore's global profile and overall affluence.

This may not be truly surprising to one as when it comes to technology, Singapore can be said to be one of the most improvised country so as to keep up with the pace of other technologically-advanced countries such as Japan, United States, and also with the number of MNCs set up here. Furthermore, there were reports saying that Singapore aims to be a technology hub, and the introduction of e-learning in schools. This serves to prove the above statement about our global profile and affluence.

In addition, with every company having operated via the computers and internet, and business deals done via emails, webcam and documentated on the desktop, it is easy to understand why we are most vulnerable to such crimes. This is because not every user is aware of the key security factors to look out for when doing any transactions or deals online but almost every user would know how to make a online deal or transaction with a click of the "mouse".

Besides, in the article it also stated that MessageLabs block out 3 times more malicious domains for its Singapore domains than the global average. This again, goes to prove the vulnerability that Singapore's businesses might face with such high percentile of web threats.

Below is a table showing the average web threats blocked by MessageLabs, April to August 2009:

Furthermore, with the introduction of e-learning in schools and also the point that most local children are introduced to the computers and internet at a very young age, it is no wonder that Singapore is the prime target.

Although these young users might be highly efficient in the usage of computers, they are also the easy targets of online criminals. This is because in my opinion, they would be less cautious than the older users due to the limited amount of information and exposure that they receive due to age limit, but are also the ones that spend great amount of time in front of the screen. Thus, they might simply click onto links which seem interesting to them or those that heightens their curiosity.

These illustrated that although computers and internet might aid in one's convenience but one must also be aware of the threats that it might pose.

http://www.mediabuzz.com.sg/asian-emarketing/november-december-2009/718-singapore-a-prime-target-for-online-cyber-crime