New News

I would like to preface this post by saying - I don't come from a journalism background. I don't know journalist other than the ones I like to read. My parent's aren't journalist. I didn't study anything "journalism-y" at school. I came into this course knowing only a few basic things.

1. I like to write.
2. People say I am good at writing. I don't believe them.
3. I don't pretend to know anything about anything when it comes to journalism. I follow the news, it's interesting to me, but I don't pretend to understand the history of journalism or the way that journalism has evolved.

So with that being said, my second lecture blew my mind a little.

The idea of "Old Media" or "Traditional/Heritage/Legacy Media" is commonsensical. First there was newspapers, magazines, radio and television.

Then came light, I mean, the world wide web (dah dah dummm).

Here is where the lecture got interesting for me. Everything progresses. A child to an adult, a caterpillar to a butterfly, an idea to a novel. It's just a given. But when you break down the development to of the Web into it's stages, it's remarkable how far it has come, and where it is headed.

Web 1.0, was all about giving information, promoting businesses, getting products out there for the masses. Think - junk mail on a computer screen!

Then we progressed to Web 2.0, the social web. Everything about connecting with people happens here. You have facebook, twitter, blogs, (the life and death of) myspace, etc. This stage brought to us some amazing tools which has allowed things like the organising "the mud army" during the 2011 Queensland floods to occur. We have also seen through Web 2.0, things like Facebook party's go viral and cause mayhem. (http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebook-party-invite-mayhem-youth-could-face-jail-20110316-1bwi3.html)
Some of it's uses may not always be for good, but you can't argue that it doesn't have the ability to connect anyone and everyone. Have you ever met someone,who just so happens to know someone else, who is your best friend? Well using Web 2.0, this occurs a lot more rapidly, as connections can be made with just a click of a button.  

We are now on the cusp of Web 3.0 - software that answers multi-layered questions. And to be honest, the whole time we were talking about this, all I could think of is..... 

The lecture then spoke about how Web 3.0 will impact the rest of the news

• Hyperlocalisation.
• Specific Content Delivery - which is both good and bad.
• Paywalls

It was a pretty interesting lecture. And now I really want to watch the Terminator movies!