Omegle? The New Facebook…I think NOT

On one of my previouse blogs I discussed the fact that maybe Facebook.com is in its pinncale right now, with only a a slow, sad downturn ahead. Twitter may be the next facebook I said, but how about Omegle?
I read an article on the newyorktimes.com site titled “Tired of Old Web Friends? A New Site Promises Strangers “, that was discussing a new site called Omegle. “It connects its users with random, anonymous strangers for a private, real-time chat,” the article written by Douglas Quenqua explained.
Much like most of the social websites, Omegle was created by a young student named Leif K-Brooks. In the article Mr. K-Brooks said that you can’t learn anything from someone exactly like you so his goal was to create a new kind of association: anonymous interaction with a stranger that complements existing social sites and helps people broaden their horizons.
I decided to try it out, before I blogged about it. First of all it is insanely easy. (Even all the “outdated”, anti-media, 40-and-above old journalists will be able to handle it.) You go to the website then click “start a new chat” and immediately you are connected with a random person and you can start chatting away.
I think this site has potential and I think it will definately have its own followers, but I do not think it will reach the level of popularity that Facebook and Myspace has reached.
When I tried it out, I had better luck than Jason Tanz, a senior editor at Wired, who said in the article that, “The first person I connected with said, ‘let’s have cyber right now’,the second was a 14-year-old kid from London.”
I was able to speak to a 20-year-old-male, from London, who seemed normal, but you never know with sites like these. But it is a unique concept, different to the mainstream social networks we are a custom to, so perhaps it may start to gain popularity and become a huge hit soon. But for kicks you should try it out!

Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is a very important issue that is being debated right now. Based on Savetheinternet.com, net neutrality is “means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.”
I wanted to learn more about this issue and stumbled upon a few good infomational sites, that I wanted to share.
Above is a “net neutrality video for dummies”, I thought this video was explained very well and easy to understand.

I also found a very funny and educational website that discussed the issue of net neutrality. It is called Wearetheweb.org
The website is comprised mostly of videos that explain net neutrality and why we should be aware of net neutrality. It also contains links to other resources and articles about net neutrality. Check it out!

Facebook. Too Cool For its Own Good?

I read an interesting blog about Facebook the other day. Facebook as we all know has infiltrated main stream media and is one of the leading social networks currently. It recently “catched up” with Myspace.com in terms of site traffic. I was also listening to CNN yesterday and they mentioned that Facebook now has about 200 million members and the anchors were discussing how everybody is on Facebook. A sure sign that a social network is doing something right, right? Well according to this blog by Clarke Levidiotis, a blogger who writes about online culture for RFI studios, Facebook is losing its “coolness” because of the fact that everyone is a member. “There is a short life expectancy for cool things on the Internet, and one could argue Facebooks’s demise began when it began allowing Baby-Boomer-age parents and middle schoolers to sign up.”
I must agree with this statement. Although I love my parents to death, they too now have a Facebook. And to make matters worse my mother’s profile picture is a picture of ME and my brother and sister, so there is no hiding that one. And apparently she is well knowledge with the internet, because she recently put an album up of the family and actually tagged me to some pictures. I thought it a bit peculiar to be friends with my mom on Facebook and I am sure there are hundreds of young people out there that may feel this way, so perhaps this might be the beginning of the end.
But also as with MySpace, when Facebook emerged people began to shy away from MySpace and Facebook became a very big competitor. And as we see now one of the leading social networks. I think the same might happen between Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is becoming insanely popular and as Levidiotis mentioned “There is a short life expectancy for cool things on the internet.” So perhaps we are now witnessing the slow decline and maybe much needed death of Facebook.