Communicating by George Hernandez

Exploring human communications via computer. This is in contrast with exploring computer-to-computer communications.

I love this little chart which I first devised in 2003-05.

Nodes	Traditional	LAN/Internet	Web
Self-to-Self	A diary or journal. Unpublished works. *Leaving notes to yourself.	*Emailing yourself.	*Unpublished sites.
One-to-One	A personal letter. A two person conversation.	A personal email. 2 player games. A private chat room. Instant messaging (IM).
One-to-Few	A letter copied to several friends. A small speech. Small range advertising. A niche article.	*An email copied to several entities.	An unpopular entity's site. An unpopular blog.
One-to-Many	A big speech. Laws made by the one. Large range advertising. A book/screenplay/article. A mass mailing. A memo. *A work of art like a statue.	*Spam in email, message boards, chat rooms.	A popular entity's site. A popular blog or blog with RSS output. *Providing or consuming Web Services.
Few-to-One	*Two parents scolding a child.
Few-to-Few	A small gathering. A small presentation.	A small niche message board. Multiplayer games. A medium chat room. A small-group groupware document. *A small group IM.	An unpopular multi-authored site or blog. A read & write restricted wiki.
Few-to-Many	Newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, etc. Laws made by the few. A multi-authored popular book/movie. A play. *A large presentation.	*A medium niche message board.	An popular multi-authored site, blog, or blog with RSS output. A write restricted wiki.
Many-to-Many	A large gathering. A convention. Laws made by the many. Public signs.	A large message board. A large chat room. Massively Multiplayer Online Games. A large-group groupware document.	A popular comments-attached site, blog, or blog with RSS output. An unrestricted wiki. *A popularity-folksonomy site.

Communication involves nodes, means, and content. Eventually this topic will have to discuss things like intellectual property and freedom.

The "means" or the conduit of communication is a medium. The plural of medium is media. The vernacular usage of the words medium and media are differs slightly from the computers usage.

In the vernacular, the "mass media" refers to the various entities that facilitate Few-to-Many or Many-to-Many communication. This includes mass media for entertainment, as well the "news media" which informs.
In computers, there are usually two meanings:
- Hardware media. This includes copper wiring, fiber optic glass cables, electromagnetic signaling (via infrared, microwave, radio waves, etc.), and the various connectors. See my section on Hardware Media.
- Software media. This includes text, graphics, audio, and video. This is concerned with the protocols, file formats, streaming, players, etc.

Page Modified: (Hand noted: 2007-07-29 02:18:29Z) (Auto noted: 2007-11-17 06:51:40Z)