In case you missed it, the discussions from Cyborg Camp have been made available online.

The discussion that really struck me was Bill DeRouchey’s discussion about the evolution of symbols. It is the first video on the list.

I do agree that Twitter is redefining the @ sign, however, I disagree that Twitter has redefined the # sign. The # sign has been used to symbolize content since the days of IRC (Internet Relay Chat). IRC was a text-based chat system developed in the late 80s, and was one of the very first of my uses for the internet, in 1992 (the first was Commodore’s Q-Link sometime in 1989.

IRC is still around, and uses desktop clients now, but back then, it looked like this:

I spent hours and hours watching this.

Many of the same symbols were used: the @ sign represented a channel operator, but the # sign represented channels. To join a channel discussing IRC, for example, you would enter #irc. So, in that sense, the symbolism has remained constant from the IRC days.

I see Twitter as IRC 2.0, in many ways. Aside from the # symbol, the basic experience of Twitter is very similar to using IRC. The discussion is one big ongoing, line-by-line scroll.

This isn’t, of course, a knock on Twitter, but a credit to IRC. The method of communication was simple and effective, and it was bound to make a comeback, in some form or other. I just think that Twitter (and social media in general) is receiving too much credit for redefining the landscape. I think it’s more accurate to say that we’re 40 years into this movement, rather than just entering it. The advent of the internet (which occurred the same week as the moon landing) was what began to redefine how we communicate.

We also discussed the effects that this is all having on literacy, what with all of the LOLs, ROFLs, OMFGs, and whatever other sequence of letter strings you can get away with. I believe these things are just growing pains. We’re going through the virtual equivelant of what the invention of the printing press meant for communication. Ultimately, we will be the better for it. English is a bloated language, anyway. Do we really need so many variations of the same words? To become more literate, we would be well-served to pare down our vocabulary, a bit. That isn’t likely, so all of these things are really just adding onto what’s already there. Which is an overload of information.

All of the discussions were excellent, and I will write more about some of the other topics later. I’m looking forward to attending many, many more of these.