What is the Largest Information Ecosystem?
By Siripen Yiamjanya
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This article in Thai
It might be said that "Virtual Space" is the largest information
ecosystem; several factors support this idea.
All communication is human-based, whether it be linguistic (spoken
or written) or bodily (posture, gesticulations, etc.)
The simple fact is that all humans communicate and
interact with each other, resulting in an exchange
of information in one way or another. What is different
in patterns of communication (from the past to the
present day) is the technology that we utilise, and
which we use so easily and freely. The pattern of
human communications is dynamic, constantly evolving,
and is becoming ever faster and easier; more "user-friendly".
The idea of a virtual space in the ether has changed the overall
structure of communication, and has created an information
highway with virtually no bounds. As long as the human
species exists, an invisible wave of communication
will exist between it, sending information from one
to another; from one to many others; to the same or
different locations; at the same moment, or, electronically,
in the future. That is the miracle that the World
Wide Web has created.
As William J Mitchell explained, after its development in the last
1980s, you could enter into the web to search for
and discover precisely what you wanted. But at that
time there was no way to communicate or to interact
with other people. This meant that in the beginning,
the web was limited to the ability to search and find
(vast amounts of) information. After the 1980s, however,
computer systems advanced to keep pace with the rapidly
developing communication technology. Lucasfilms Habitats
and AOL, for example, discovered a new world called
cyberspace. You could now find a "room" or a place
to share your information and to "talk", in real time
with others who were connected to you through their
computer screens. The advances in communication and
information technology simply exploded upon an unsuspecting
world. We were suddenly able to interact with others
in cyber space wherever there was a computer available.
Now, there was a community. The place where we interacted
with each other we gave the name, "virtual room",
or "chat room" (World of Words, William J
Mitchell).
This expansion was soon to include the development of open source
software, which enabled a situation called Total Freedom
of Information Exchange (Preserving the Information
Ecosystem: A Discussion of Open Source Software (OSS),
Stephen Adler). When more and more people from
different sites started to exchange their information
and share their opinions and ideas, and when it happened
in such a dynamic fashion, a community was created.
This community came to be known as an "ecosystem".
The difference was that it was a cyberspace community,
which aided virtual human communication. This led
to the creation of an information ecosystem. Other
forms of human communication certainly affect social
movements and change them in many ways, as the information
ecosystem does, but the information ecosystem does
it at a much faster rate.
The information that stems from human communication has lead to the
idea of a Virtual Chat Room, including what we now
know as "Messengers" (such as Yahoo Messenger / MSN
Messenger, for example); Web boards; and the latest,
(the new kid on) the "Blog". These represent the most
extensive information ecosystem yet developed by man.
It is also the most dynamic human communication system
yet seen, and it is eminently possible to share and
post thoughts and ideas that substantially affect
the ways in which the world feels, thinks, and reacts
to the input it receives.
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