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CGF ARTICLES, OPINIONS & EDITORIALS

Social media: It’s more than you may think (2013-06-03)

Many technologists across the world were completely bewildered by the claim Gordon E. Moore made in 1965, when he boldly predicted the rate of change the world would undergo through the rapid development of technology.
Famously known as “Moore’s Law”; it supports the notion that every two years the components found on integrated circuits would double, and the size of the components would half in the same period.  Simply put, this means that the computing power in various computerised devices is doubling every two years and the size of these devices -- which most of us use on a daily basis -- is becoming more powerful, and more pervasive.  Of course, Moore’s predictions have come to pass, and in fact these predictions may even have exceeded his original thinking.  One just needs to consider the average computing power found in cell phones, laptops and Personal Device Assistants (‘PDAs’) which are owned by most ordinary citizens.  

Today the average person has in his possession, a wide variety of PDAs and similar computerised inter-connected devices which are more powerful in computing power as compared to that which was used to place the first manned Apollo rocket on the moon. Indeed, technology of this nature has changed the world in a way that we have never seen before, and its impacts are felt at all levels of society; be this for a busy executive in New York right through to a young scholar in the heart of Africa.  It’s true - we are all somehow ‘connected’ and if it’s not through family ties or sport, it’s most certainly through the World Wide Web.

It was not that long ago when the first hand-held cell phones became vogue, introduced by Motorola in the early seventies.  This phenomenon certainly seemed the new way of staying connected, and it wasn’t too long before mobile phones became the pride and joy of almost every person, rich and poor, across the world.  While many may have thought this new communication medium would be enough, a brand new form of communication and networking was soon to rock the world with yet another creative way in which ‘social engineers’ developed media network exchanges through applications such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Mxit. 

And so today, in order to communicate and interact with people at a social and/or business level, we need no longer rely upon having to physically network with people on a face-to-face basis as was the case in the seventeenth century, or, for that matter, post a letter which was introduced to a select few South Africans in 1792 when the first post office was opened in Cape Town.

Time has certainly changed our modus operandi and the speed at which we are able to collect and send information is unparalleled today.  Any person who has access to, or owns a computerised device which is connected to the internet is able to communicate on social media platforms where he can, inter alia, exchange details about his life such as biographical data, professional information, personal photos and up-to-the-minute thoughts. 
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