Topic 2 - Is Email Dead?

In week 2 we looked at the idea of email being a passing fad or form of communication.

The lecture covered the problems associated with Email, such as the copious amounts of spam received by those who use Email. We briefly touched on the various scams proliferated through Email. Nigerians seem to be the most successful scammers (and that’s not a dig at their people, by the way).

We also got to see the results of the New Communication Technology Survey. The questions were to do with our reliance on technology, with one question asking: How dead is Email? Apparently everyone used email to some extent. This leaves little doubt that Email is still an important and widely used form of communication. I personally think Email is great.

In the tutorial we talked a little bit more about Email before starting our blogs.

Again, the subject of Email being used to exploit people came up. Chris told us how scammers can just mail bomb millions of Email addresses with their shady scams, with a small percentile of those likely to fall for them.

After we finished talking about Email, we started our Weblogs. We were encouraged to use the website Blogger.com, a widely used blog creating website. I found Blogger to be very functional, and I thought it was rather user friendly. I haven’t customized my blog yet, though I’m quite happy with its current design.

The required reading for this week was the first few sections of the “Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.” The introduction talked about blogs heralding in a new era of “free expression.” Bloggers in countries such as Iran and China that have limited liberties in freedom of expression can do what mainstream media in those countries aren’t always allowed to do: tell it like it is.

The handbook also covered some technical blogging jargon. Words and acronyms such as “RSS”, “Wiki” and “Permalink.” I think it will be useful to remember what these words mean, so I am grateful to have such a handbook.

The last section I read was about using the best blogging tool to set up and maintain your blog. It seems different blogging tools have different attributes. Blogger is described as being the biggest, but having limited features.