It sounds rather ominous when it's worded that simply...
Let's talk about The Cloud shall we? I won't tiptoe around the fact that I am something of a nerd when it comes to things on the internet. I usually end up being glued to a screen more so than anything else. But what's really interesting is even though I'm on the computer so often, there are a lot of aspects to The Cloud that most people use, and yet I simply do not.
While I do have a Facebook account, it's rare that you'll actually see me doing anything on it. At most I post a link to a video I've made on Youtube. And unlike Facebook, Youtube plays much more of a factor in the "things I do on The Cloud". When it comes to image saving, I mostly only do it for small games I make (text based games in case you're wondering, so no technology there) if I need a picture to show something off or something, and in that case I just use Imgur as it's been the most reliable for me. My email has fallen into the same disregarded boat as Facebook, in which I check it sometimes, but I really don't do anything with it. I do have Open Office however, and that's where I type all my essays for school and the such.
Five years ago was rather different, but at the same time, not by a whole lot. Basically, all you'd have to do to get the internet for me five years ago would be take away Facebook, take away Open Office, take away my email and replace a couple nondescript websites with a few others. I was still on Youtube, I just wasn't making any videos. While I think back on it, it feels as if technology has improved a lot over the past 5 years, but I tend to ignore the advancements such as Facebook and Twitter and just keep going with the things I know. I wonder why that is...
It's really hard to say what the future has in store. It's a little worrying to be honest, whether it'll be even more impossible to remain private on the Internet, or Google updating Youtube again to make it even more inaccessible (That's a rant for another day though) I find it hard to look super brightly for things to come. It seems we have hit almost all the bases when it comes to things we can do thanks to The Cloud. We can make music, make videos, make art, chat with friends, type up entire reports, the list goes on. All that remains is to see how the current methods of doing all of these things can be improved upon in the future, though it could be for better or for worse.
Hey Dmitri!
ReplyDeleteJust thought I would pop in and say hello. I gave your blog a read and figured I'd comment with a few ramblings and questions. So you make videos on Youtube? What kind of videos do you make? Do you have a link? I'd love to check them out. I've always thought about doing a video blog in addition to a regular blog. I always thought that would be incredibly cool. The hard part is getting people interested in anything you have to say or put out there. When in doubt always go with comedy, that's my motto.
It's hard to believe you don't have a facebook. You're probably the only one I've met who doesn't. Good for you though! If I didn't have a facebook I would probably find way more hours in the day to get stuff done!
What’s up Dmitri,
ReplyDeleteI can identify with what you’re saying about Facebook and email. When I was a senior in high school, it was Myspace and Hotmail, but my accounts pretty much collected dust. Face-to-face interactions really took the place of social networking. I saw everyone I knew at school every day, so why the hell would I go home and talk to them on the internet? There was way too much to do, anyways. Homework, eating, girlfriends...lots more, I’m sure. Anyways, I didn’t really start using social networking until I left the nest. In college, for the first time, I was away from all of these people I had gotten used to seeing everyday. For me, it wasn’t so much that it was important for me to stay in touch with people from home--I don’t know that I particularly liked anyone I graduated with all that much--but I started getting into the habit of keeping tabs on people. Seeing who got fat, who got married, who enlisted in the Army and the like. These were people that I never really even talked to that much. Like, I was in 9th grade science class with them and I accepted their friend request because why the hell not. It’s not like I ever planned on talking to those people.
Basically, the cloud has enabled me to be a huge cyber-creep. Let’s just say I’m glad it’s a one-way street, and these people don’t know when and how much I’m checking in on them. If Facebook were to send them an alert and say “Dan is lying in bed, doesn’t want to get up to start his day, and would rather look at your pictures and read your status updates on his iPhone.”
The looming question for me is, with all of this potential you mentioned with the cloud, what will we choose to do with it? Are billion dollar companies like Google going to keep buying up everything that smaller companies make popular? Can there be internet altruism, or is the cloud just another profit machine for the one percenters? I realize that money makes the world go ‘round, but will the poor, internet entrepreneur always bow to the almighty dollar?
I’d like to know about your beef with Google. Maybe we can commiserate. You may have your finger on the pulse of some smaller web-based companies in the cloud that haven’t yet gotten eaten by monsters like Google or News Corp. Maybe we can urge them not to sell out. I read a slate.com article that said if Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom had turned down Mark Zuckerberg’s billion dollar offer to buy the company, they could be worth 15 times that much today. That’s $15,000,000,000. Kind of hard to fathom. I’m not going to pretend to know anything about business, because I don’t, but maybe selling out to the highest bidder isn’t always the best bet.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/11/14/facebook_s_1_billion_instagram_buy_did_kevin_systrom_sell_too_soon.html