Are search engines our time assistant or squanderer? It’s a good topic to debate apparently, way back when the search engine was first invented, it’s said to save time and make the works easier and in fact, it does, in a way that we don’t need to click link by link to look for information we need. However, search engines becoming a time squanderer too. According to Stefan Weitz Search Team Director of Microsoft, (also mentioned in Dr. B’s blog) we’re spending 75% of the time to look for things we want online. If anyone of you gets whatever you want from online at the first time search, I believe the feeling would be like winning the lottery yet the possibility of making this happens is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

            People, this is not “backstabbing” the search engine though, it’s just that somehow the vast and clutter information in the internet is far too hard to be classified. However the merits of search engines which allow us to do sophisticated searching, and its simple and concise way to use should not be overlooked. Come to an end, the invention of search engines at least, making the huge number of information online appeared to be organized.

           What’s maid in the web? Isn’t it sounds interesting?The agent, interest me pretty much. I admit myself as an internet dumb sometimes where I’m always not aware of “what’s new” in the web. And so, the existence of “agents” in webs has motivated me to consciously take heed of the 2 hours lecture.

          Having a maid in the web is just like having a maid at home. The agents are delegates and representatives. It’s said to be a machine or software to perform tasks. This reminded me about a friend of mine whom I consider really dependent. She had tried hard in looking for remote control for almost everything in her room, including light, fan and air-cond. This isn’t run out of my topic of this post because, don’t you think remote control somewhat playing a role as agent does too? I asked this friend the reason of looking for remote control for all of the electronics in her room and this is how she answered “remote control is the most advance technology up to now, that decreases my work to the least and I always pray to god that for the invention of a machine to control the electronics automatically once I set up the program to come soon.”

           The invention of “agents” has fulfilled the people’s aspiration of minimizing the work and maximizing the pleasure. However, as the machine is absorbing more and more information or tasks and hence becoming more intelligent, what happens if one day the system has corrupted? This worth to be ponders over.

            Frankly speaking, this second blog post for this week is cracking my brain. Yes, because all that I can post about this week’s lecture are all in the previous post. But due to the responsibility to be a GOOD student, I’ll try my best to be conscientious about this blog

What first come to your mind when you see the picture below??

              If “Facebook” is the word that appeared in majority of you, I would consider this as the magic power of big sites in the web. Don’t you guys agree with me, we’re somewhat too dependent on the web? For some web frequent users, I believe you can have the answer for above picture for less than a second. Why saying that we’re too dependent? This is not hard to find evidence. In fact, webs becoming almost our “everything”, we surf, we chat, and the word itself apparently sounds so surface but basically, this is one of the ways to find entertainment. I really couldn’t imagine a day without webs, and the internet connected nothing..

            If anyone of you going to tell me, “sorry, I’m not dependent”, in this case I’ll suggest you to instead of searching information on webs; try to look for it from libraries, books by books. Or, close down all your Facebook, Twitter, and emails accounts. Hmm..i wonder how the life gonna be…

            Every country has its rules and every society has its regulations but what restrain these rules and regulations are law. I’m not trying to bore this post with theories yet just to show that web is also “restrained” by an information society where I think, the “shared language” plays the most significant role in the society because it indicates the particular page we’re clicking in, in the web. Just a reminder, “shared language” used in web is the html as well as http. Now, what’s about Web 2.0? In my opinion by looking upon the words itself, the number 2.0 shows somewhat the development or it’s the second generation of the web. In conjunction with the advance technology, the web now provides us the search engine, to classify the clutter information on web. According to O’Reilly, T. (2005) there are seven principles of Web 2.0 and this is why I claimed that Web 2.0 matters! I’m not gonna write out the seven principles in specific but what I can say about the Web 2.0 is, it makes the communication between people becoming significant. What I’m regarding about the communication here is the data, whereby it is the most important thing in the web because every user shares the same data. Whether or not we like to surf the web yet we have to admit that almost every one of us is depending on it for the majority information especially the development of Web 2.0.

   What are new media and old media? Well, I think it’s not too difficult in giving examples of new media or old media. But the problem now is, some of the media machine e.g. radio is just too hard to categorize it as either new or old media.

Why do I say so??

      Firstly, radio has been invented and established thousand years back. I could see people listening to radio even from the “black-and-white-movie”. On the other hand, it’s not wrong to consider it as new media too, mainly because it plays quite a vital role in our daily life. I wonder what’s the first step people will do every time when they get into the car. It’s not surprise to discover that people will turn on the radio right after they get the engine started. Radio, apparently, has been part of our life.

      I know that there are people who “cant-live-without-cell phones” and the best example falls on myself. E.g. I can turn back home, although I’m half way to a destination just to bring my cell phone by my side. Without realizing, radio actually has the same status as cell phone does and both of them, in this case bring me to the sense of how the technologies affect our comports. Sometimes, having cell phones in the pocket is just as comfort as listening to the radio in the car.

      What I’m trying to point out throughout this post was, regardless of new or old media, the media technology is just as significant as we breathe. The media world and the world we’re living is doubtless closely bound up.

           During the classes this week, we have further discussed about new media technology and a question asked by Sonia Livingstone interest me. “What is new for the society about new media?” Apparently, the invention of new media technology has brought a better life to the society. The new media world or to be specific, the internet, shorten the distance among people, giving the unexpected convenience to the world and everything will get done by just a ‘click’.

            So what’s actually new to our society? Is that the virtual bond among people or the “magical world” created by the new media? From my point of view, the new thing that has generated in the society now is unfortunately, the weak interaction in reality. As Dr. B mentioned in the class, no one would gather to surf the net. Doubtlessly, internet chatting pulls the distance between people to be closer, especially people from different places, e.g. different countries. However, has anyone think in depth about it? At the same time, internet has also weakened the interaction between people in reality. Let’s have Dr. B’s words as example, people now rather choose to isolate themselves in a room and go online yet decreasing the chances to interact face to face.

            The relationships, in this case have become a “non-critical” issue in this world because online relationships have replaced the existing ones. I would say, the society now has badly dependant on the new media technology. I think, everyone of us still needs to put on more effort on how to fully utilize the benefits that new media technology brings to us.