Online Forms of Communication

E-mail Technology

The E-mail started as a form of radio communication which was used in the mid-20^th century. Later, it evolved into a file directory which left a message on the receiver’s computer. However, as computer and internet technology progressed, the E-mail also needed to do the same. An ARPANET worker named Ray Tomlinson eventually solved this problem in 1972 by editing the E-mail to be sent to multiple users, each with their own address. Because of this, Tomlinson was known as the official inventor of e-mail technology.

The ‘@’ symbol which gave everyone a separate e-mail address.

From that date, the E-mail progressed to allow many people worldwide to communicate among each other. ‘Offline e-mail’ was also developed which allowed users to store e-mails in an inbox if they were offline. Despite the growth of E-mail technology, some e-mail services such as SMTP (Simple Message Transfer Protocol) were not complex systems. Because of this, Viruses and spammers took advantage and many problems with the server were not fixed until the 2000’s.

The e-mail continued to advance from its problems and separate services such as Hotmail and Gmail were created which provided an e-mail inbox to internet users. Today, e-mail is still a popular form of communication with an average of 90 trillion e-mails sent every year.

Social media/Networking

Online forms of social networking and media have been increasingly popular within the past ten years. The original idea of social media and networking was to allow users to reunite using the internet. Due to their popularity, most social media sites expanded to allow users to communicate with ‘friends’ online. The features of social media have also expanded to include photo, video and status sharing, social network gaming and even ‘groups’ and ‘pages’ which a user can choose to ‘follow’.

The logo of Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites.

Although, social media features many advantages, it has also created cyber bullying which involved targeting users aggressively. Many users also felt that sites such as Facebook were havens to stalkers and paedophiles. In response to this, Facebook and other sites have increased online privacy which users can set for themselves. Despite some disadvantages, social media and networking have increased in popularity with over 500,000,000 Facebook users alone.

Forums

Forums are another popular form of communication which expanded to the internet in the 90’s. Forums allowed users to comment on a particular topic.  Today, there are forums for just about every topic with gaming, sport and music as examples of popular topics. Forums also require admins and moderators to supervise them as spamming and ‘trolling’ are considered as disadvantages within those forums. Like other forms of online communication, forums are growing in popularity. Forums are particularly useful if you are researching problems that need solving as someone else will have the answer. Forums also bring users together and create a community around a common interest.

SMS/Smart phones

Short Message Service (also known as SMS and text messaging) is a form of technology recently created as an alternative to phone conversations. SMS works in a similar way to radio communication and e-mail, which involved sending messages to a user.

SMS started as a feature on mobile phones in the 90’s but eventually ended up become more popular than mobile conversations. The rapid increase in SMS popularity was partly due to the release of the smartphone which featured far more services than just speaking verbally to other user. Text messaging was made easier and more accessible which is another reason for the popularity of SMS. As well as SMS, smartphone use has also increased because of the extra features such as app downloads and internet access without the use of a main computer or laptop. The popularity of the smartphone means that many people follow the latest ‘trend’ of smartphone.

An image of the IPhone 5, the latest smartphone to be released.

Blogs

Blogging is a different form of online communication which evolved from internet forums in the 90’s. Blogs allow a user to express their opinion about many topics. Should other users feel the same way about a topic, then an option to follow that blog is available. The user can also use a blog to influence and interest people in a similar way a forum can. Blogging has increased in popularity from 1998 and 1999 and as a result, over 156 million blogs exist on blogging sites such as Blogger and Wordpress.

The Wordpress logo, another example of a blogging site.

Video Conferencing

Although less popular, video conferencing is still a form of communication which has been used in the USA since the 70’s. Video conferencing is mostly used by businesses and companies to communicate quickly between different countries and locations. While video conferencing is used by people not working for companies, Skype is more popular with the general public. Statistics say that 75% of businesses will use video conferencing by 2013 and this proves that video conferencing is still popular.

An example of video conferencing in progress.

Online News

News reports online are an example of online communication between a website and users. The news site updates the site with recent news and the users can pick up on the article. Other features such as trending allow users to catch up with what is popular and important. Online news services are popular because with apps and downloads, users can quickly view the news without reading a newspaper or watching the television.

An example of an online news report on a smartphone using a downloadable app.

Podcasts

Podcasts evolved from radio shows to become audio files which can be listened to. Like blogging, podcast can be made by users to express opinions except using sound instead. Podcasts can also feature any topic and other users can download any podcast they wanted to. Because of their wide range of topic choice, podcasts can create a podcast for any purpose such as entertainment or informative reasons.

Personal experience

As mentioned in the online services post, I use communication from the information age and it has been an affected my life as well as the lives of millions of people across the world.

E-mail is one of the most useful forms of communication for me today. This is because it can be used in most situations whether I am sending documents and general work between computers or talking to friends online.

I also use social networking as an alternative to E-mail communication sometimes. Having said this, I generally use social networking less than E-mail technology. However, social networking is useful for keeping up to date with news, both local and international.

I don’t visit forums often, although I can use forums to follow common interests and find answers to frequent problems. Forums can also help me broaden my opinion about a common interest and agree/disagree with other members.

I also don’t use SMS or smartphone technology frequently as I personally prefer social networking and E-mail to communicate online. Should I require speaking to /messaging somebody immediately, then SMS would be an option I could use.

Like Forums, blogging is another way I can research and follow a topic I find interesting. I also use blogging to state facts and opinions about what I find interesting and people can follow if they wish.

Online news reports are useful to find out the exact situation from wherever I am. This is quicker than reading a newspaper or watching the TV which is why I find it more useful. I can also find out about news using social networking or other forms of online communication.

I have never needed to use video conferencing and podcasts before which means I don’t use either form of communication. However, both are useful forms of communication and I may need to use them in the future.