communication
Is Society’s Internet Addiction Affecting The Children?
February 3, 2010
This generation of kids (and in fact even the ones before them) have often been portrayed as fat couch potatoes by the media at large, children who are slowly loosing the ability to use language and their legs correctly and who are developing a distorted view of the world based on bad communication skills, the Internet being for porn and mass killings with terrorists in Russian airports.
There will always be people to defend them – mostly a mix of gaming enthusiasts, the occasional scientist and games manufacturers PR departments – but the results of a recent survey are fairly condemning where they show that kids are spending nearly eight hours online every day!
Continue reading »Growing Importance Of Geographical Location On The Internet
November 22, 2009
Wordpress is one of the biggest blogging platforms on the planet with over 7.5 million bloggers using their hosted service. Recently, they rolled out geo-tagging, which allows you to label your blog and blog posts by location, with the promise of new features coming soon.
The ability to search by area as well as “showing the location of your commenters, the location of poll votes, a live map view of blog updates on WordPress.com, or an annual report showing you where your posts were written and where your comments came from” will gradually be implemented and highlight the growing importance of location in the digital age.
Continue reading »Google Wave: How To Add Extensions (Gadgets & Robots)
November 7, 2009
Google Wave works well as standalone system for chat, file sharing and so on. However, it also gives you the option to add extensions which enhance your experience and the range of functions it can perform. Extensions can be thought of as similar to Facebook applications; just as you can install apps to customise the way you use Facebook, you can add extensions to personalise the way you use Google Wave.
Extensions come in two varieties: gadgets and robots. Gadgets are the most similar to Facebook apps, you install them and they run as part of a wave (thread). To give an example: you can install the Sudoku gadget, and use it to play against a group of friends. Robots are more similar to the bots you see on Twitter, but far more sophisticated because they behave as kind of artificially intelligent participant in a wave. The best example is the Twitter robot, Tweety, which can be used to update your Twitter status and also to follow tweets from other users.
Continue reading »Google Wave: How To Create, Send, Reply & Add Video
November 1, 2009
You’ve signed up with Google Wave, logged in and suddenly you’re faced with an interface that isn’t particularly intuitive. The features are quite simple to use, but do require a bit of a learning curve. So, if you’re scratching your head trying to figure out how to send your first wave (message), here’s how, and to make it even more useful, I’ll also tell you how to embed a YouTube video into it.
How To Create A New Wave
At the top of the centre panel you’ll see a button marked ‘New Wave’. (There’s is also a link in the panel on the right but that will only be visible if you don’t have any waves open.) Click the button and an input box will open up on the right.
Continue reading »The Google Wave Rave – A Glorified Chat Client?
October 31, 2009
A few months back, Zath brought you news of Google’s new communication toy, Google Wave. I was lucky enough to be sent an invite to get a chance to play with it and it definitely is a fun toy to play with. It sure does invite a brand new way of communicating with the masses and looks like it should do well when released and all your friends have it too. But, how useful is it really?
Well, let’s take a look.
Continue reading »Google Wave Review (Early Beta)
October 29, 2009
I was lucky enough to get chance to join in the beta-testing of Google’s new much awaited product Google Wave. If you’ve heard about it – it’s hard to miss, the technology blogs have long anticipated it – and are wondering what all the fuss is about, read on.
What is it?
A real time communication platform; think Facebook’s live feed, but with far more bells and whistles. Google Wave can be used as a messaging system, as a collaboration tool for work projects, as a way to share and comment on photos and videos, or as a wiki with shared data being editable by anyone who wants to contribute. A range of apps and gadgets offer more options, such as: collaborative maps and a Twitter tool.
Continue reading »How To Improve Your Online Communication
April 5, 2009
Anyone these days can claim their own slice of internet territory, and be the authority figure of that virtual piece of land. No doubt many people reading this are either webmasters, admins, forum moderators, bloggers in their respective niches. Being a good authority figure on the web requires many talents, particularly when it comes to networking with partners, communicating with readerships and developing a community.
The grounds of this is obviously language, yet unaware to most, online communication is by nature destructive and problematic – destined to cause confusion. It’s embedded in the linguistic construction of online communicating and worth talking about if we are to become better authority figures within our community.
Continue reading »
