Hello Blogworld...so this is my first post in the ever-expanding dimension of on-line publishing and communications.
Let me give you a slice of context. It is Friday the 26th of June 2009 and news has hit the world of the death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. I am among the millions of people, worldwide, that have been touched by this news and I have quickly transferred as many of his songs to my iPod shuffle as possible to create my soundtrack to this otherwise uninspiring British summer day.
Okay, so how is MJ's death relevant to this blog and to on-line communications as a whole? "So what?!", I hear you ask.
Last night, I checked my Facebook account before I got to bed and in the feed documenting the small changes to friends' profiles, I saw a bold and disheartening update: "R.I.P. Farrah Fawcett & Michael Jackson" (at 22:56 GMT +1, 25 June 2009). I could scarcely believe it. I checked the BBC's homepage and it had news of MJ being rushed to hospital, but had not confirmed his death yet. The news of MJ's death had broken to me on Facebook; not BBC, not CNN, not the Times. By 8am today, millions of Facebook statuses had comments about MJ's death. Celebrities from Usher, to P-Diddy, to Celine Dion had used their Twitter pages to post their tributes.
The true scope and power of social media revealed itself to me today. From Cambridge to Dubai, Manila to Madagascar, California to Cuba, people everywhere have been cramming to communicate using Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, MySpace and other instant publishing sites.
This blog is about communication - this great feature of life - and how it is changing and evolving through the incredible diversity of on-line media that rests at the average person's fingertips.
As often as possible, I want to be able to open up discussions and debates about the most recent uses of the Internet. Whether these be to communicate opinions, brands, trends, products, political ambitions, love, hate and more. I will ask questions such as, "What affects are all of these new channels having on modern society?", "Will tomorrow's generations learn more on-line than in school?", "What is your favourite website?", "Is communicating on-line safe for publishers - and for viewers?"
There are millions of questions to ask and I suspect there are billions of answers out there...but hey, let's post it and find out!
PLH
