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Focus Spring 2018
Are you Muddled by Mobiles, Confused by Computers or Troubled by Tablets ? Does Social media
leave you dazed and confused. Well anguish no longer. The Focus has put together a short introduction
to some of the more popular services available at the touch of a button. All you need is a modern com-
munication device and an Internet connection and the world and all its wonders are just a fingertip
It’s true what they say : you are never alone with a phone
.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
ELECTRICKERY
Back in 2004 two American
high-school friends put their
heads together and created a computer
programme that allowed them to ex-
change messages and pictures with their
friends. Facebook was born.
At first it would only operate between
desk based computers but by 2007 it had
been updated to run on mobile phones
and tablets and the Facebook revolution
took off.
Now Facebook has over 2 Billion users
worldwide and is acknowledged as the
leader in the ever growing market called
Social Media.
At the heart of Facebook lies the Inter-
net. Without this service Facebook
would not exist. Facebook uses the Inter-
net to take messages and pictures from a
host computer or phone and broadcast
them to nominated friends.
There is no limit to the number of friends
who can be connected this way and in-
formation can be transferred any time of
the day or night 365 days of the year.
So how much do you pay for this service?
Well nothing. Surprisingly It is free to
standard users and all you pay for is the
Internet service that runs behind the
scenes.
So how does Facebook make it’s money?
(Recently quoted as being worth over
$500 billion). It does that from corporate
users who buy into the many promotion-
al packages on offer. With a user group
of over 2 billion people this is like gold
dust to big corporations who see it as
easy way to connect with possible cus-
tomers.
On the down side Facebook can be very
unforgiving. Many users have found
themselves on the wrong side of this
remarkable service when they foolishly
posted offensive or libellous messages
when angry or drunk - possibly both.
Twitter first appeared back
In 2006 and was designed
as a general broadcast service to allow
friends to communicate with brief
messages generally called ‘tweets’.
Back then users were limited to 256
characters though in recent times that
has been increased to 512. Short and
quick Twitter it is often used by famous
people (including Donald Trump) to
broadcast a message directly to the In-
ternet which can then be picked up and
read by anyone listening or ‘following’
that persons account. Currently Twitter
has over 350 million subscribers and
posts more that 400 million tweets a
day. They are busy boys!
The Twitter service allows people to hear
- straight from the horses mouth - what
a person’s view is. Bypassing any televi-
sion or newspaper service that may wish
to distort the original message. Using
Twitter it is also possible to ‘Tweet’ back
to the original sender. The service also
offers a Hashtag (#) feature which allows
users to follow specific topics identified
with the # symbol. As with Facebook the
service is free to standard users.
Tumblr
This service is similar to Twitter in that it
is a broadcast service. However with
Tumblr it is possible to post a message
that contains text and pictures into a
mini-story often called a Blog. Mini-Blogs
can be made public or private.
This service is popular with users wishing
to tell a history of some event or activity
they have been involved with be it a
holiday, sporting event or diary entry.
The Tumblr service also features a star-
board option which allows users to ac-
cess
stories
and
mini-blogs
as
recommended by an in-house editorial
team.
Instagram is a mobile,
desktop, and Internet-based
photo-sharing application
that allows users to share pictures and
videos either publicly, or privately to pre-
approved followers. Developed in San
Francisco it was launched in October
2010 and is now owned by Facebook
who paid US$1 billion for the privilege. It
currently has over 375 million active us-
ers.
Instagram lets registered users upload
photos or videos to the service. Users can
apply various restrictions to their images,
and also add locations through special
‘geotags’. They can also add ‘hashtags
(#)‘ to their posts, linking the photos up
to other content on Instagram featuring
the same subject or overall topic.
Users can connect their Instagram ac-
count to other social media profiles, ena-
bling them to share photos to those
profiles as well. In June 2012, an "Ex-
plore" tab was introduced, showing users
a variety of media, including popular
photos taken at nearby locations, trend-
ing tags and places.
Support for videos was originally
launched in June 2013, and had a 15-sec-
ond maximum duration and limited qual-
ity, with Instagram later adding support
for widescreen and longer videos. Private
messaging, called Instagram Direct, was
launched with basic photo-sharing func-
tionality in December 2013, and has
gradually received major updates incor-
porating more features, most notably
text support and "disappearing" photos.
In August 2016, Instagram introduced a
"Stories" feature, letting users add pho-
tos to a 24-hour temporary story, with
subsequent updates adding virtual stick-
ers and augmented reality objects.