New Media

Blogs, like the one you're currently reading, are becoming more and more prevalent in the communication industry.

1.  BLOGS

Publishing personal thoughts, opinions, and arguments is much easier to do today that it has been in the past.  Rather than going to journalism school, working and clawing your way up the industry's ladder, and finally getting the chance to make your work known... now all you need is a computer.  Scratch that.  All you need is access to somebody else's computer.

The accessibility of blogs is, in some ways, great for communication.  They provide a simple, quick way for countless numbers of people to get their opinions out there.  Of course, with millions of different blogs on the vast World Wide Web, you're bound to find a few that are influential, important, and worldly.  However, you'll also find ones like "Hot Chicks with D-Bags" and "Lesbians who Look Like Justin Bieber."  Entertaining, sure, but if I'm a New York Times writer 20 years ago, I'm not a very happy horse knowing that www.icanhazcheeseburger.com probably gets a million times more readers than I ever did.

2.  TWITTER

Tweet

In many ways, Twitter defines Marshall McLuhan's vision of a global village.  The internet makes everyone who has access to it connected in that everyone has access to the same information as everyone else.  Facebook connects people and creates this global village by being able to see who is friends with who, and what people are up to in terms of jobs, relationships, or even what they did last night (news feed photo album stalking).  Twitter allows people to tell the world exactly what they are doing at all times.  If you just woke up, rubbed your eyes, brushed your teeth, and put on pants.... you could tweet to the world that you just woke up, rubbed your eyes, brushed your teeth, and put on pants. 

3.  Meebo

Instant Message Everywhere

 Don't worry, the Internet apparently knew how annoying it was to have a million tabs open on your browser, so they just combined everything in one super communication site called Meebo.

I had no idea this website existed until my brother told me to include it in this assignment five minutes ago, so I went to the website to check it out.  It's an explosion of social networking.  It's the online equivalent to having reality TV show cameras following you at all times.  Not sure if I like it.

But it does decrease the clutter on your computer screen...