We live on an incredibly shrinking globe that allows real time communication from almost anywhere on the planet. My wife can have a chat on Facebook with her friend in Denmark, while I am having a Google Talk conversation with my buddy from Australia, while monitoring updates from the streets of Iran on Twitter. I could watch a You Tube video from my brother’s birthday party yesterday over 3000 miles away, email my entire family all over the country simultaneously, and keep tabs on what is happening in the corridors of the Congress and the Whitehouse.
Web 2.0 tools have allowed us to be connected in ways scarcely imagined in previous generations. Social media has risen to new heights with the incredible use of Twitter, Facebook and You Tube as a means of twitterspondents (citizen journalists) providing news updates and images from the protests regarding the election results in Iran. Streaming video on the web allows for interactive content so that television cannot compete. People are building online communities and creating grassroots organizations around Internet sites that are having a huge impact on political structures around the world. Even the United States recent presidential election was heavily influenced by web 2.0 tools.
I am constantly amazed at how adeptly the next generation is mastering these tools. The digital age has begun and we are in for some very exciting times ahead…