Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

That's 10 'ha's for Cnet journalist Kent German's top 10 dot-com flops. Where there's light, there's darkness. Yin and yang. Black and white. North and South. What I'm trying to say is, there's always an opposite, a polarity. For every good idea in the world there's bound to be a bad one somewhere.

The hallmarks of the internet, such as Gmail, Facebook and Twitter were brilliantly conceived ideas. A really bad one, as listed in the article, is Flooz.com.

According to the author, Flooz is basically a third-party company that you buy credit from, credit which you can then spend at selected retail outlets. Have they ever heard of money? Why would anyone needlessly convert cash in the bank to an online currency that can only be used at a limited number of stores? The only justification for this was also non-existant: there was apparently (and fatally for Flooz) little to no incentive for anyone to do so.

Other than laughing learning how some good ideas went really bad, I also finally realized what IPO stood for! It's an abbreviation for initial public offering, and it's essentially when a company offers public shares to the public for the first time. Seriously though, it makes me wonder how the billions of dollars wasted on these successful failures could have been put to better use. Like so.

Introduction to Introduction

I've something to confess. The first time I saw the name of this module I was a bit cynical. Introduction to the Internet? At this time and age, is there a neanderthal who doesn't know how to use the internet to browse and communicate? Has anyone really not heard of MSN or Facebook? The infinitely pervasive and truly ubiquitous communication tool known as the internet is so essential to modern everyday living now that it sometimes feels like it's the only thing working with gravity to hold the world together.

I digress. After the first few lessons, I realized that there's so much more to just learning how to access the internet and its immeasurable amount of tools. Apart from gaining a bit more computing knowledge, such as the difference between the internet and an intranet, I've realized that it's important to also understand how the world has been, and is, constantly shaped by the web socially, politically and culturally. The intriguing Google v China issue will have far-reaching implications. I can't wait to see how this pans out. Will the world's largest search engine get its way, or will the rising economic behemoth that is China emerge victorious?

The basic history and evolution of the internet isn't something to be overlooked as well. As George Orwell once said, "He who controls the past, controls the future." To have a better grasp of the exciting future that bears so much potential, we have to appreciate how and why the internet was created. Which is why you should attend every class despite it being 830 in the am, like me! :) Stay tuned for more.