Something that I’ve been meaning to talk about in Media & Society for the last couple weeks is this big concept of CONVERGENCE. What I want to talk about in this blog is my prediction for the future of the internet. I read in Media and Culture on page 55 that “Yahoo!’s method has been to make itself an all-purpose entry point--or portal--to the Internet.” This sentence alone is what aroused this idea in me that I haven’t been able to let go for two weeks. Then I thought, “Why not blog about it?”
It’s already happening--you open a Blogger account, and they ask if you want to connect to your E-Mail, AOL Instant Messenger, Facebook, YouTube, FormSpring and Twitter. Go to any of these sites and sign up and I’ll bet they will ask the same thing. Websites that do these things are forging connections between each other, hyperlinking and embedding and automatically updating.
I think--and tell me if I’m crazy for thinking so--that in the near future, there will be one portal--an application, or program downloadable to your computer, that has your fourth generation media needs all in one. If anyone is familiar with Macintosh computers, my idea is similar to the “Dashboard” application. [See image above, click on it to see the source.] I guess what I’m trying to say is that everyone in technologically advanced culture will have one profile--not a MySpace, Facebook, and a Friendster, but just one profile. Your blog would be on that one page. Your videos, photos, twitters, instant messages, and e-mails will be on that one page. You have one account. And everyone in the world will be on the network. This is where I think Yahoo!’s “portal” idea comes in. I think the new portal is going to be a software that computers come with when you buy them, and the software is compatible with all other softwares in the world. This software isn’t going to be a privately owned website like everything we see now. I think that it’ll be a universal public domain and everyone will use it as an entryway into the new Web 5.0!
I don’t know if I picked an appropriate topic for my first blog post in Media & Society and I don’t know if I articulated myself well enough because it’s kind of an abstract concept, but I’m really glad I could organize my thoughts... I guess this is what Blogging is all about!
Whenever I think about convergence and the future of Media culture, I think of the movie WALL-E and all of the fat humans in moving chairs with the computer screen.
1 comment:
Very good post here, Domenica!
Yes, blogging helps to organize your thoughts.
Be sure to "caption and credit" each embedded photo, as we discussed in class, yes?
Now go find some more followers, and share the love.
Dr. W
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