the Internet - Synchronic communication

The Internet did not start out with the purpose of synchronic (real time) use, but the need for it came quickly. The Internet was originally started as a defense measure by the US and was called ARPANET. It was meant to survive under nuclear war so the government could still get information from one place to another. Fortunately we have yet to use the Internet under the purpose it was constructed, but it has been used under war times.

IRC is just one use of the Internet but was one of the first real time forms of communication over the Internet. APRANET had its own chat clients called planet but the most used was a chat client called talk. Talk was run through a telnet session. Neither one of these had many users. Synchronicity chatting did not become used much until IRC was developed in August of 1988. Jarkko Oikarinen in Findland developed IRC. IRC allowed multiple users to connect and communicate in a real time environment. When Iraqi invaded Kuwait and cut off Kuwait’s communication, Kuwait used IRC to inform the world out side about what was going on inside. This was the first famous use of IRC as well creating the first test of the Internet. This test of Internet’s design showed that it could withstand a war.

Chatting has become a very popular use of the Internet as a real time form of communication. The most common chat clients include mIRC, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, and msn messenger. Originally the only type of communication that IRC supported was typing, but chat programs are starting to adopt more types of synchronic communication. The idea stated out with small text pictures or emotions like :) meaning happy or smiling. The programs quickly started allowing small pictures like in place of the :). As people wanted more verticality out of their chat programs voice communication has become an add-on. Now even video communication is becoming add-on as well as its own form of real time communication. The biggest problem with video communication is that it takes lots of bandwidth for both people to see and hear each other. As Internet bandwidth becomes larger video communication will become more popular. Currently the answer to the low bandwidth problem is to send a picture every few seconds with out sound. This can be seen at http://www.webcamlocator.com/ where a person can see public cameras set up on freeways, roads and college campuses.

Currently, one of the fastest growing uses on the internet is online communities like myspace and facebook. These online communities allow a person to create a profile and like their profile with other people's profiles all around the world. A person can send messages pictures, upload pictures, music, sound and much more. These online profiles are being used instead of personal webpages because most of the time they don't require any html knowledge and are much easier for networking with other people with similar interests.

In the future the Internet will use more synchronous types of programs. The telephone, chatting programs, and video communication could be combined into one program that does them all. IRC programs could replace the current forms of communication. In order to be a stable form of communication that would be easily accessible to everyone it would need to be used over the Internet. When people have larger bandwidth connections to the Internet it will allow for better and more real time communication.