Space-The final frontier-Part One …

This past Sunday, Anne R. Allen wrote a post about the various ways to avoid spam on the internet, using examples of what one should not do in the social network to annoy, badger, eat of the forbidden fruit … or what is proper on-line etiquette for writers … How NOT to be a Spammer: A Guide for Authors.

I love when my fellow bloggers give me inspiration; i.e. fodder … for one of my own posts.

Today is the first in a series of how we went from there to here … how the domino of the first social network … the now obsolete My Space … led to a cacophony of social networks … which led to an army of groups … which led us into the new age.

The language and format used … and how each of these connects to a vast network of social, educational and insane communications … not only for writers … but for everyone.

And while My Space was the first of the social networks … Google … the giant of giants in search engines … takes us to all the known and unknown planets in our universe to the stratosphere and to the ionosphere of information gathering that has no end … like a life line that never dies.

Google It ...

The blank search line that can be filled in to make an instant connection.

All of our life we make connections … we connect to likened souls, to music, a moving image or still life in art.

When boomers thought of connection … their minds jumped to groups, demonstrations, causes … either lost or found.

Then technology reared her flighty head and suddenly we were connected to everything.

Yes, every darn thing there is to see or do or read or study.

In a flash we can travel the globe or reduce weeks of research to hours.

Google it !!

Before …

If we asked a parent or a teacher what a word meant they countered with … go look it up.

Ever try to look up a word in a dictionary if you can’t spell?

Grumpy Cat

If we needed to do a research paper, we went to a library to peruse the stacks for encyclopedias and related books on our topic.

When we needed to find a local restaurant … we let our fingers do the walking … in the Yellow Pages.

If we wanted to know more about a famous person … we found their biography and read about them.

And if we wanted a chart of the schedule for the NCAA Basketball Tournament … we read the sports section of our newspaper.

A scandal or a tasty morsel of gossip flashed the headlines of a trashy tabloid … the Sunday papers announced deaths, weddings, engagements, mergers, acquisitions, houses to buy or sell, and automobiles available in your area.

Hundred of trees died every week to produce the ten pound wonder of the Sunday New York Times and bring you all the “news fit to print.”

After …

If a child asks a parent or teacher the meaning of a word … they tell them to “Google it.”

Google logic

And you don’t have to know how to spell. the search engine auto corrects what you are looking for … “did you mean ??”

You can correct spelling and grammar or look up dozens of words related to other words in an on-line thesaurus.

In a flash you can find any fact, figure, image or news headline … simply fill in the blank space on Google and the search engine will spit out a million related articles.

The Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer printing actual books but is available exclusively on line.

For a fast reference to anyone or thing … any event or object of curiosity … you can use Wikopedia dot com.

Google humor

Where do your FB friends find funny animal videos, nature scenes or Grumpy Cat humor? You got that right. They Google, copy and past … and post it anywhere in the vast expanse of cyber space.

You can go to school from K through graduate school on-line, take classes in everything and anything and if you can’t find a quick lesson on how-to do that darn oil change … go to Youtube and find dozens of lessons on how to fix your car or find an old song or a concert you missed.

Nothing is not available. No thing is unattainable. No word or speech or group. No television episode or full-length movie. It is all out there.

All you have to do is go to the search engine and Google It.

Without a conscious thought, we go to that blank line dozens of times every week … for some … dozens of times a day.

Zillions of words and images are floating in cyber space … and when you want to find any of them … Google It!

What to do with it all …

So you’ve looked up that word or you found the perfect cartoon image to post on Facebook … you wrote that first or second book … crafted a lovely collection of poetry and someone told you … go forth young writer and network.

Fly though space and give everyone the news. But how and where? What if you are not a writer? What do young mothers do … what about the wives of the military … the animal advocates … or the just plain annoying folks who end up on your FB Timeline?

Not to worry. It seems that millions of just plain folks find social networking a fun way of communicating … and when they want to send a message or a video or they need to post the latest in political rhetoric … the first thing they do is Google It.

Tell me if you will …

What are your favorite things to fill in

That blank line?

How often do you Google It?

fOIS In The City

Note:   The social network that left My Space in the dust is the topic of next week’s Random Thoughts … that and more humor from Maxine … a true Facebook favorite.

Maxine Philosophy