New Forms of Communication?

[Neal]

What are some emerging/new/upcoming forms of communication?

i.e. - Twitter, iPhone/iPod Apps, Mac Widgets, Mass Texts

What are other new/emerging forms of digital or social media/technology that allow one to transmit info. on a mass scale?

[Escapay]

Homework or a general inquiry?

Anyways...

What are some emerging/new/upcoming forms of communication?

Well the concept of videophones (and essentially any visual communication where the people do not have to be directly in front of each other) have been around ever since ye olde sci-fi serials of yore, and in my experience it didn't really catch on and get big (well, big in the "the casual computer person will have some idea how to do it" sense) until the rise of the webcam and sites like skype, stickam, ustream, etc. I'm sure it'll continue to be developed in the years to come.

In addition, e-mail has become a prevalent form of communication since the internet went public, and nowadays you can do e-mail from phones, blackberries, PDA's, instead of just a computer.

Voice mail's been around since answering machines, though now you can check it from any source instead of the "answering machine" itself.

What are other new/emerging forms of digital or social media/technology that allow one to transmit info. on a mass scale?

Besides the internet? Um...I don't think we've come up with any new ones yet. Transmitting a large amount of information via "cyberspace" (do we still even use that term?) seems to be the newest way. Unless they've somehow figured out how to magically download information to the brain a la The Matrix, I can't think of any other ways.

Facebook and the like have a way of showcasing info on a mass scale, though the definition of mass scale depends more on who you let see your profile.

albert

[Neal]

Homework for a college club - advertising club - I'm on the media department and am trying to come up with something potentially groundbreaking for us to use for our ads - be ahead of the curve.

In regards to video phones, we discussed Skype, which is close.

[Margos]

Telepathy.

[Wonderlicious]

Telepathy.

Merde! I was going to do that joke.

All joking aside, though, I would say one thing that springs to mind are smartphones: the type of mobile phones that are essentially more mini-computers than they are really telephones such as the BlackBerry and especially the iPhone with its five-hundred billion possible applications (I have found out there's applications to help one follow the goings-on of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and to find nice restaurants in Venice ). I'd also include networking sites like Facebook and Twitter (and to a lesser extent MySpace and Bebo), as Escapay has already mentioned. I often wonder what people's social lives - for better or for worse - would be like today without them.

[Margos]

Telepathy.

Merde! I was going to do that joke.

You know, I was shocked that no one had done it yet! (Especially someone like Scaps or SHJ!) And I just couldn't pass it up!

[Escapay]

Neal was asking for new forms of communication, after all.

albert

[Neal]

A couple of those are great. A few are out of our budget - perhaps, even, out of this world.

... but thanks!

[SpringHeelJack]

If we don't have Star Wars-esque holograms by the time I'm a senior citizen, I will be terribly irate.

[Elladorine]

I often wonder what people's social lives - for better or for worse - would be like today without them.

Um, probably like my social life was in high school . . . we were barely aware there was a World Wide Web and having a cell-yew-ler phone was considered a luxury.

Technology may change, but human nature doesn't. I had a lot of pen-pals when I was a teenager, and we'd mail around "FB's" ("Friendship Books") or "slams" to each other.

Looking back, it was just like a message board or online forum . . . but in slow-motion. People would staple or sew a small book together, write their name, address, and interests on it, sometimes a list of questions, and mail it to a friend. Then that friend would mail it to someone else who would do the same. When all the pages were full, the last person was supposed to send it back to the original person ("OP?"). These little hand-made books would often travel all over the world! Many of us made fancy address labels specifically for them or would xerox drawings or clip art with our names and such . . . basically, they were early versions of an avatar. Many of us also had nick-names or handles that we went by . . . heh, so we actually had "user names" as well. I used to be "Eilonwy M. Sawyer" and actually got mail with that name on my envelopes. (The "M." stood for Megara.) But before anyone says that sounds so hideously slow and old-fashioned, those FB's were really all we had to connect with fellow fans of Disney and anime outside of conventions, and I made a lot of good friends through them, one of which I consider my best friend that I still keep in touch with all these years later.

Oh, sorry for that little nostalgia trip, we're supposed to be going forward. Back to your normal thread now.

[dvdjunkie]

Tis a sad day indeed. When I was young, a quick post card to someone was the best way to keep in touch. Most all of this modern day technology has passed me by.

I still don't understand, or know how to Text, don't know what an iPod is, and I own a cellphone and don't even know my own phone number. I only know that I have it on in case someone in the family needs to reach me in an emergency situation.

I am probably the only person you will meet that FLUNKED "computers for dummies" classes.

I don't know what I am doing here, but I have this little thing in my favorites that says Ultimate Disney, and when I click on it, here I am.

I guess I am just easily entertained by my 10 grandkids, and my big screen Home Theater and Blu-ray system, and haven't had the need to seek out other forms of communication.

I know that several years ago I was asked to speak at a High School regarding the "new" technology of Widescreen versus Pan and Scan, and was shocked at how many kids in the classroom were allowed to have their cell phones out and were busy texting and sending messages to friends, even in the same room, and not paying attention at all to what was being talked about. If that is the way schools are today, then we have a very sorry educational system. Just my opinion.

[KennethE]

It is likely that in the very near future, wireless internet connection will be available at any location on the planet, meaning we can do anything a laptop of desktop can do, but on the go. (Like many cellphones, but with even more capabilities.)

I expect that there will soon be a time when the computer screen's image will be projected on a pair of sunglasses, and wearers can instantly use the internet to store their memories and data. I read a sci-fi novel called "Accelerando" by Charles Stross that addressed these technological possibilities.