Rise of the internet

Before any discussion can begin we first need to define a few terms in the context. No doubt, you all reading this already know what the terms ‘communication’ and the ‘internet’ are, but please humor me for the sake of procedure and let us first take a look at what ‘communication’ is.

Communication can be defined as the process of sending and receiving messages to and from one medium to another (i.e. a sender and a receiver). This can be in the form of written messages, verbal messages or even gestures. The point is they get a message across through the use of an intermediary of sorts it is impossible otherwise (if you can do it however do tell me).

The internet on the other hand is a global network of sorts; A mass connection of computers all across the world which has been growing steadily since its creation. ‘And when exactly did this device come into being’ you ask. I can answer this of course (truly), but unfortunately dedicating numerous pages to this topic is not the purpose of creating this blog (nor is the thought in the slightest bit amusing) so I will make it easy... (on myself) and point to this link

www.isoc.org/internet/history

Aren’t I helpful? Now all those who are interested can proceed, and those who dislike history (like me) can continue on.

Which in turn brings us to the question what then is internet communication and why is it significant? In this page we will look at only what internet communications are and some types of internet communication. The other pages and my other group members will take you through the rest, so kick back and enjoy this flow of information (which more than likely you already know about)

Alright, coming back to our definitions of communication and internet, one can deduce what internet communications is. Simply put internet communication is the process of sending messages and or content using a computer on the global internet network. In other words Internet communication is communicating via the internet using mediums of sorts. For example this blog is a form of internet communication. Right now as you read these words, we, are communicating with you.

In any case a blog is not the only way to communicate on the internet. They are many ways to do so, the most popular being e-mail and instant messaging. Of course there are also chat rooms, groups one can join, internet telephony and even various applications such as face-book which one can use to send and receive messages in many forms on the internet. The rest of this page as I mentioned before will be dedicated to given a brief introduction into what these mediums of internet communication are.

E-mail

To begin e-mail/electronic mail is an application which you can use to send and receive messages and even certain files such as pictures. It has grown so much so, that having it is crucial to almost any individual from students to large corporations. The process is very simple, all you have to do is register for the service using certain the web and you are simply a click away from sending and receiving messages. Some examples of e-mail service providers are yahoo, Hotmail and even g-mail.

Instant messaging

Instant messaging or IM is basically software which allows you to converse in real time with someone you know, by alerting you to their presence. IM services today also include nifty applications which can allow you to plan your appointments and even receive news feeds. One significant difference between IM and e-mail is the fact that IM is not inter-operable. Meaning you can only send instant messages using the same IM software, though some IM’s are overcoming this problem. And perhaps an interesting fact is that most e-mail service providers also provide IM services (an indication of the wonders of competition in our dynamic world, perhaps).

IRC (internet relay chat)

Like e-mail IRC is an internet service, but in this case you are actually put into a specific channel or as I like to think of it inside a ‘virtual room’ with various other people whom you can only recognize as something like ‘shinartz’ ‘wandering star’ or other nicknames. You can generally communicate with everyone inside that virtual room. These ‘rooms’ are more or less labeled according to the topic under discussion, making sure that entering a ‘room’ with a label that interests you would not lead to a loss of things to say (more or less)

Before we move on I would like to point out that the above mentioned three forms of internet communication is not limited only to the internet. It can be used in almost any network, whether home or office intranets. Moving on…

Internet Telephony

Internet telephony or video conferencing as it is more widely known as is a set of interactive telecommunication technologies (meaning at its simplest a web-cam along with the usual computers) which allow two people in two different places to communicate using both video and audio at the same time. At the time this writing video conferencing is readily available to the public, but due to some problems such as video quality and all, we have yet to see it progress to a more commonly used form of communication.

Some other applications

A growing trend into the world of internet communication is that of communication applications like facebook, hi-5, freindster and so on. Most of these applications are thought of a means to make contact on a societal or group level. Their growth has also been fueled by the fact that they incorporate message sending on a basis similar to e-mail, IM, chat rooms and even blogs in some cases. Moreover they provide more applications to keep the user entertained than other forms can use.

Without a doubt, there are of course other means of communication one can use on the internet. However for the purposes of our analysis we will be focusing specifically on these means of internet communication, their merits and demerits and how we, the students in IIUM use these services.

But… more on that on other pages, so until than I bit you adieu and hope that you find this information refreshing. Refreshing in the sense that we know that most (if not all) of you know about these services already.