Climbing.

I'll be quite frank with you, I live my life on a series of whims. This is where my conviction (and lack thereof) ultimately stems from. Any long-term goals I may set inevitably fall to the wayside, replaced by an apparent deep-seeded urge to fix what isn't broken. In the few days prior to my second JOUR1111 lecture, I caught hold of a whim - this one however, stuck.

I took my seat in E109, buried deep within the bowels of UQ's most iconic building, the Forgan Smith. My promptness was rewarded, of course, with a half-hour wait in the hallway - but that's in the past. From Dr Redman's first sentence, I knew this was going to be a good lecture. Remember that whim I mentioned earlier? I caught hold of it, combing through the (apparent) required reading that had been posted on Blackboard, and absorbed it. Mostly.

It was 'straight from the textbook', so to speak. This talk of old media, new media; it wasn't an overly difficult concept to grasp, but it WAS an interesting one. Where do we draw the line? Prior to this lecture, I'd decided first at port had been print-media. Then it was radio, then television and 'finally', the internet. Apparently, it's not as simple as that; it's even simpler. For the sake of grouping and labeling, all of the aforementioned forms of media (excluding the latter) fall under the banner of 'Old Media'. That is, an era of mass communication, whereby audiences are targeted according to specific markets. I thought, "okay then, so New Media is limited only to the internet?". Somewhat, but it's a little more involved than that. 

'New Media'  is an ever-expanding concept. From 'Web 1.0' to 'Web 3.0' and beyond, the media landscape is drastically changing. 

'Web 1.0' - The beginnings of the internet, the 'information web'. Very advertisement-friendly, with a general focus on giving companies the power to engage with their audience

'Web 2.0' - The 'social web'. The internet broadens further, exploring new forms of communication within the medium itself; blogging, tweeting, 'poking' (for facebook's easily amused) - targeted marketing explodes in popularity, with an overwhelming emphasis on communicating as efficiently and effectively as possible..

.. which brings us to 'Web 3.0' - The 'semantic web'. Still in relative infancy, web 3.0 was predicted in 2001 by Tim Berners-Lee (the credited 'founder' of the world wide web) when he stated "Computers must have access to structured collations of information and have set rules for relevant inferences’". In English? The semantic web involves collating information about the user and using said information to provide relevant suggestions based on prior-use. This can already be seen on sites such as Youtube and Amazon, where a user's prior search criteria is used to form "relevant inferences" regarding other videos and products (respectfully) that the site believes would interest them.

Media is changing, we understand that. We understand the concept, but perhaps not the scale. There's a vast world of information out there, behind paywalls and censorship.. but alas, that's for another day. For now, let's rest, knowing full-well that in a matter of a few short years what seems so very far away could be at our very fingertips. 

To me, that's scary.

And Exciting.