“2008 on the web: The 20 Key Elements”

By Sean P. Aune
December 6th, 2008
Source: Masable.com

Hey Friends,

I found this article pretty cool. It is a breakdown of the 20 most popular key technological events of 2008, some of the top 20 include:
• The internets role in the 2008 US Presidential election- with candidate Barack Obama’s online fundraising and weekly YouTube posts
• the continuous competition involving data portability- there is MySpace Data, Facebook Connect and Friend Connect, created by Google- these data portals fight to be the leader in sharing your personal information
• The expansion of application platforms- Facebook Applications, MySpace Applications and event the March launch of the Apple App Store
• The introduction of new services available from Citizen Journalism, such as CNN’s iReport and CBS EyeMobile which recently showed up on the iPhone- this allowed citizen journalism networkers to break stories in real time as they happened
• The effect that the economic downturn had on the Internet- this affects the companies that rely on the Internet as a sales or business medium. As economic declines are expected to worsen into the new year, venture capitalists will be sure to pull back on their funding to companies
• Streaming Television Shows- much of the latest take off in 2008 were thanks to Saturday Night Live Presidential election skits (ONE OF WHICH I POSTED ON MY BLOG- ITS HILARIOUS). Online viewership of television shows expanded so rapidly that the BBC extended the length of shows on iPlayer, BBC also offered to stream the shows and the same time they were being aired on regular television (AN ARTICLE ABOUT THIS DEVELOPMENT IS ON MY BLOG- CHECK THAT OUT)
• Lastly, is the Facebook Redesign- we are all familiar with this new development; remember receiving hundreds of those pesky invites to join the group protesting the ‘New Facebook’! On July 20th 2008, Facebook launched their user profile redesign in limited release and went worldwide with it in September. Those invitations to join the reversal to the old design came out only FIVE MINUTES after the new design was implemented. Yet, even with all the demands for reversal nothing has changed, it is clear now that the new design is here to stay friends so get used to it!

These are just some of the 20 most popular key technological events that occurred over 2008. Check out this link to read the rest of the article. These new developments are crazy and affect all of us, especially as media students. New technological advances will be able to assist us when we enter the workforce and learning about it now will give us the advantage. There are so many new mediums to explore so read this and enjoy!