Sunday, April 22, 2007

technology&culture

Technology and Cultural expert- Yeo Jia Wen

The following are excerpts from the following website:

Article source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube

[please click on link to view the full article]

YouTube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips. Videos can be rated, and the average rating and the number of times a video has been watched are both published.





During the summer of 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web, and was ranked as the 5th most popular website on Alexa, far outpacing even MySpaces's growth. According to a July 16, 2006 survey, 100 million clips are viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded per 24 hours. The site has almost 20 million visitors each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant. YouTube's pre-eminence in the online video market is staggering. According to the website Hitwise.com, YouTube commands up to 64% of the UK online video market.

In its short time on the web, YouTube has grown quickly and received much attention. Online word-of-mouth has been primarily responsible for YouTube's growth since its inception

Reflections

Technology, in particular the internet, television and radio, is indeed shaping the world.

Just by typing a few words on search engines, switching on your television and radio, we can easily access foreign materials. No longer do we have to travel halfway around the world to see what is life like at the other end. Clearly, technology has shrinked the world.

YouTube is yet another example of how technology is shaping the world. YouTube has impacted the world, and it has become something that many people in many different parts of the world have incorporated into their lives. YouTube has 20 million visitors each month, and this shows that technology is part of many people's lives in the world today. It is possibly why YouTube, a product developed from technology, can rise to be such a phenomena.

One of the reasons why YouTube has become so widely used and famous is because it can easily be accessed and used by simply anyone in the world. One just have to sign up and they can use it to upload an unlimited number of videos. Since people find this website interesting and it is so user-friendly, people would want to recommend it to their peers and this encourages the growth in popularity of YouTube.

Technology is something that can be understood and managed by all, crossing all language barriers and countries' geographical borders, which helps the world to create a common culture rapidly. One example would be the World Wide Web. One can obtain a piece of information almost instantaneously from another once it is being placed onto the World Wide Web. As such, the World Wide Web encourages the rapid spread of information and ideas, and even at a large scale. YouTube has become a common tool used by millions all around the world. People can view how others live their lives, and this can influence their way of living as well, by making it similar to that of others'. This can thus create a common culture. People are harnessing technology to create a global culture, and this shows how big a role technology plays in globalisation.

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