Growing Up with the Social Internet

The Internet made its humble beginnings as a group of smaller internets (multiple networks connected together) in order to facilitate the sharing of research. It would take just short of 40 years for it to be adopted by the mainstream market, helped heavily by CERN’s World Wide Web project. Since then, consumer connection speeds have been slowly increasing, from the 28.8 kilobits/second connection of early adopters, to the 100 megabits/second Fibre to the Home (FTTH) ¹ connections available in Japan (jealous much?). This gradual increase in speed has opened up the option for several different activities. While 15 years ago we were limited to merely browsing simple web pages with text (and maybe a couple of small, low resolution images), and communicating via email and IRC (Internet Relay Chat), today’s connection speeds allow us to view web pages with interactive content, play games with dozens of people simultaneously, and even hold video conferences, where you can both see and hear the people you are talking to (and they can see and hear you too!).

One trend that has been steadily increasing is the opportunities for keeping in touch with friends and making new friends. In the 90's, this had relatively humble beginnings and was quite limited, but has grown with the creation of PHP, Flash, JavaScript and CSS and various Instant Messaging protocols. As such, I’ll discuss each social application, my opinions and experiences in a chronological fashion.

IRC

I first began using IRC in the mid- to late 90's, and I guess this marked my entry into geekdom. In the space of 24 hours, I had talked to dozens of people, some in Australia, others from other countries as far away as the UK and Turkey. It was also my first introduction to a language that has since slowly been adopted into modern day language - phrases like, LOL, OMG and other abbreviations (GTFO), as well as l33t speak. Oh, and we have IRC to thank for that little gen that is bash.org, where an entire day can be wasted in what only feels like 10 minutes... God bless and damn it.

Due to the number of networks and client programs available (across multiple Operating Systems, IRC is fairly easy to get started in, though there is a learning curve, and some circles aren't quite accepting of newcomers. For those interested though, install the Chatzilla FireFox add-on or grab mIRC (30-day evaluation period... I'm not saying anything ;-) ), then join us in irc://irc.sjkwi.com.au/#jicks. Most of us are UQ students, so there's plenty of common ground.

Instant Messaging Clients

Instant Messaging (IM) clients have been around since the Internet hit mainstream appeal, and today there are many clients and networks available, including MSN Messenger (now Windows Live Messenger, but more commonly known just as "MSN"), Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and more recently than these three, Google Talk. I was introduced to MSN pretty much the same day as IRC, and since then it has become a staple in my life. IM clients are based around a contact list (unlike IRC), and each user has a unique user name, opening the option for each user to have a profile page, which many of these IM networks take advantage of.

Over the time I've been using MSN, it has slowly evolved. Emoticon's (emotion icon's) have always been a staple, as has sending files to contacts. Webcam streaming was an early addition as is the ability to hold voice chats. There have been attempts to integrate MSN with Microsoft products and applications, like Remote Assistance, Whiteboard, and games. One good example of these games is Age of Empires - you could simply invite an MSN contact to start a game without going through the usual procedures of starting a game and tracking down your friend's room, though if my memory serves me correctly, this was only available in an additional package known as MSN Plus.

Customisable options such as Display Pictures, background images and setting a colour for your chat windows have also been included, some with more success than others. One feature that I use quite often is the plug-in Windows Live Messenger integrates into Windows Media Player which displays the song you are currently listening to next to your screen name. The song title is also a link to NineMSN's music store (at least here in Australia), so you could purchase a song a contact is listening to.

Forums and Message Boards

Over the years I have been a member of a number of forums, and have been witness to the rise and death of many. Much like IRC, forums have their own subculture, though it has certainly influenced and been influenced by IRC. Humour certainly abounds in forums, and, with the increases in connection speed, things like "thread bombs" (aka "image macros") have become commonplace... many for some reason involving cats...



Forums can be found for just about every area of interest, though many of the more successful (and longest surviving) are those found attached to professional news websites, such as Bit-Tech and IGN, as there is a constant flow of conversational topics and, lets face it... the staff get paid to keep the forum's alive. All of the forum's I've been a member of that have died have been those that have been run during the owner's spare time.

Again like IRC, many friendships that I have kept to this day have originated from forum's, a great majority of them going back to the first forum I was a member of ("Nintendo Cult" if anyone is interested, one of the first gaming related forums too I think - many similar forums have certainly spawned from its death, the members migrating from one to the next).

Blogs

Blogs just seemed to suddenly explode out of nowhere. One minute we were just happy browsing news sites and trolling forums, the next, world+dog is posting his opinion on anything and everything, telling the world what he did last night, and in some cases generally ignoring or forgetting the consequences - we've all seen the stories of employees being fired for comments they're put in their blog.

In case you can't tell, I'm not a huge fan of blogs. It's not that I don't think they have their merits - there are many blogs I read frequently, and I myself have my own blog (even if I don't post much). It's just that the general majority of people seem to assume that they have no liability for what they post, or that world+dog even cares what they think about the girl/guy at work/on the bus. We don't. Maybe your friends do, but not the rest of the world.

Facebook

Well, I must admit, I only signed up to this at first to stop the flood of emails I was getting from people who had joined and decided it was a great idea to let Facebook invite everyone on their MSN contact list. Only to be bombarded with emails letting me know Jane Smith is inviting me to install x application to hook up with hot singles... seriously, requiring people to invite people to use an application before you can use it should be banned... although most of these offending applications are pretty much rubbish anyway. Apart from this, I have become quite a fan of Facebook. I have been able to stalk keep in touch with many people I have met during a trip overseas (seriously, go to a youth hostel, everyone there has a Facebook page) or known from a distant past, and have attended a few events as well. Also, I am afraid it is the only place you will be able to find a photo of me on the Internet. Speaking of photos, the tagging system is great, and with how quickly the site has gained popularity, I can see why it caused such a fuss in the news. The site is worth serious money, so it must be doing something right.

Last.FM

I mainly joined this site so I could have a new experience to write about for this reflection, and as music plays (pun not intended) a large part in my life, it seemed like a good candidate (and like I said above, there's not many photos of me on the Internet).

To be honest, my Last.FM has been fairly transparent. The scrobbling application sits down in my system tray, and I rarely go to the web site. Though I can defiantly see advantages to using the web site, particularly the Events section - I discovered a concert that is happening in a month that I am really keen on attending, and I'm sure I never would have known it was on otherwise. The "Taste-o-meter" appears a bit strange, not for what it's supposed to do, but for it suggesting my music compatibility with some of my friends is "Medium"... when we have no artists in common (though it seems to have fixed itself now). Maybe I haven't explored enough of the site yet, but it only seems to be of limited use to me, and doesn't have nearly the "sociality" of other sites like Facebook.


Having grown up with the Internet, it is quite interesting to see how it has evolved, and how it has influenced my life. Certainly, much of my life is now centred around the Internet, and not merely because society has begun a shift towards all things electronic. I still continually find it strange to see people in real life that I regularly talk to on IRC and MSN Messenger and how differently they look to how my imagination has pictured them due to their personality. Not to mention the first times I meet someone in real life that I have been electronically talking to for some time. I can only imagine how strange it might be meeting someone you know from World of Warcraft or Second Life for the first time, now that the Internet also allows us to assume another identity and appearance through these types of applications.

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¹ http://www.lonestarbroadband.org/technology/ftth.htm

Wayne Sebbens
s4117619


kthxbai