In a previous post I tried to debunk the term ’social media’. I’ve claimed -in contrast to the Wikipedia-definition- social media has got nothing to do with technology or the internet.

As Dorien asked for more clarification I will focus on the telegraph as an example of social media.

The Hurrays (& Boo’s) each medium faces

“we are one!” said the nations, and hand met hand, in a thrill electric from land to land. (The Victory, 1872)

The Atlantic Telegraph – that instantaneous highway of thought between the Old and New worlds.  (Scientific American, 1858)

These quotes remind me of the quotes you heard at the beginning of the popularization of the internet or when after an O’Reilly-conference the term web2.0 was coined. Typical terms for that time were “information superhighway” (see above, that instantaneous highway of thought) or the co

ncept of “global village” connecting distant places beyond the borders of space and time.

The ‘code language’

We all know chat language or SMS langauge. It is an abbreviated form of the English

language to speed up the process of communication.

Most known examples are probably LOL for ‘laughing out loud’ or thx for ‘thanks’.

With the telegraph they also used these code language for fast and easy social contact:

I I stands for ‘I am ready’. An operator would use SFD (’Stop For Dinner’) when he would take a break for dinner and one would use GM to wish the fellow-operators a Good Morning.

Human relationships

When the internet started to become mainstream we saw stories poppin up in popular press about

people meeting and eventually getting married via the internet. It was perceived as a miraculuous never-seen-before event that love emerged via your 56k-modem.

In his work “The Victorian Internet” Tom Standage refers to numerous stories of love over the wires. Most of them comes down to operators who in the after-hours started chatting (or playing board games like checkers) via the telegraph and eventually fell in love.
So, the only thing I wanted to tell in this and the previous post is that it’s not the internet or any other medium which is making us social, but it is the people using it (to have fast and easy communication, to find friendshiop and maybe even find love). All the buzz surrounding so-called web social media is not new and has been here before…

Source: The Victorian Internet

At SwarmSketch you can collaboratively sketch with other users, from all over the world,  on an online sketch board. A new - popular search - term is randomly chosen every week, which becomes the sketch subject of the week. Users have the opportunity to sketch one line which adds up to what others have already drawn. The sketch grows thanks to the contribution of all users.

Furthermore, after drawing a line, a user can improve the sketch by regulating the color of the lines drawn by other people, which the system randomly choses. Another interesting feature is watching an animation of the progress: how the sketch evolved during the week.

I have something - almost obsessive - with books. When I was little, I weekly paid the library a  visit and came home with ten books (the absolute maximum), crawled under the big dinning table and started reading. And after bedtime, I secretly continued reading with a flash light hidden underneath the covers. Working for a publisher and getting paid to read books, was for a long time the job of my dreams. And still , I can’t pass a book store without going inside and buying a book. Contrary to my youth, I no longer go to the library. Instead I buy every book that I want to read. Why? I’m not sure … probably because it’s a very personal good: you laugh with it, cry with it, fall a sleep with it …. And the idea that “your” book has been in the hands of thousands of library visitors …!

So enough about my book-thoughts.

A few weeks ago I discovered Blurb, an online publisher of books. And since my mother’s birthday is coming up, the idea of making here an own personalised book was born! So, I decided that would be a very nice present (I will like it probably more than she does)!I started immediately by downloading the software … and I must say: it’s very easy. You first have to decide the size of your book and if you want one in colour or in black or white. After that you have the choice of using some starting points (lay out examples)  or starting from scratch!

I decided to use a starting point, namely the photo book. After that it is just dragging the pictures to the right place and inserting some text. And even with those easy actions, you receive help. For example when the resolution of your picture isn’t high enough, the programme tells you this!

From my point of view, the most difficult and time-consuming activity was collecting the right pictures! A process that still takes place.

To be continued…..