Finding Friendster

10 years ago it was probably impossible to know what happpend to that hot girl introduced to you by your classmate's girlfriend's younger sister. Let's face it, what on Earth in reality can make us wander pass all geographical barriers, through into a plain filled with people's faces? Except, of course, if we have Cerebro, but we'll have to wait until a not-too-distant-future before Professor Xavier invents it.

Today, welcome to technology. A house full of computing wizardry and cosmic creations. In Friendster, you get to by-pass all geographical barriers, skip all the chatting up with friends about the good-ol-times, skip that yellow pages tearing moments, all that Motorola crashes, all the Maxis pay bills, all the North-South Highway traffic and go directly for the kill.

I mean saving hours, days, years and even lifetime of searching for your long-lost friend or even just your neighbour! Through Friendster, the information of that hot girl introduced to you by your classmate's girlfriend's younger sister is just several clicks away! No need for you to call your former classmate, then drive to his ex-girlfriend's house, and then fly to Edmonton, Canada to meet with his step sister, then take another flight to South America to find a research team working on Lemurs, before finding out that she already got married to your lecturer in university, who presented the lecture "Lemurs and Our Daily Lives".

The world is connecting, so fast, we can hardly catch up. They say this is an era of information. Where information overwhelms the ability of humans to absorb them, or even manage them. I think information is always there, no matter which era we're at. Of course the information builds up but is it to say that we'll forever be stucked at the information era, like we'll always have agriculture and industries?

Today we already have homes equipped with 200 GB hard drives. 1GB pen drives. 40 GB portable music players. Now we can stuff in thousands of songs into that 40 GB player, but are we really going to listen to them all in our daily commute? Call that information era, but its not relevant at all anymore. We already have the solutions to data storage and management.

This era is about communication and networking. If we look properly, the Internet is not about creating information. The Internet is about linking information together. That is what led to the boom of the information era. But the people who coined the term, missed the fundamental function of the Internet- communication.

Sun Microsystem had a dream to connect local appliances at home, in the office, etc to the computer, and vice versa- making everything connected by creating Java, a programming language. And this is the future. Today Bluetooth handphones can connect to computers. And the hands-free kit can be connected to the cellphone through wireless network. Not at any time in the past had we used the term network so much in our daily lives.

Now Friendster, is showing us again, that the network function of the Internet is omnipotent which all must respect. Besides the creation of networking platforms and devices beckons respect because not one thing in this physical world can connect us so fast, so reliable and so easy. Therefore it is about time for us to proudly say we live in an era of networking.