Sharing

They teach you at a young age to share, and that’s one of the lessons that has definitely stood the test of time. In the digital age we now live in, not only do we share massive amounts of data and files, but we also share information about ourselves. File sharing and social networking have exploded over the last few years as more and more people are becoming accustomed to the internet and this new digital era of communication. No longer is this stuff just for teenagers and the computer-savvy, but the average citizen as well.

It’s hard to know where to begin with a topic like this, as there are so many things that now facilitate sharing online, so I’ll start with the biggest – Facebook. According to Facebook’s press statistics, the social networking site has grown to over 175 million active users, with about 70% of those from outside the United States. Keeping in touch with friends and family around the world is easier than ever. Not only can you send messages and chat with them, but view pictures, videos, and a countless variety of applications. People seem to be much more open to sharing who they are with others online now, and more open to meeting new people and discovering new things in a globalizing society, which I think is great.

To help people stay connected and utilize these things on the go, tons of cell phones, as well as other various devices, have already been given internet capability – or, at the least, the ability to download videos, music, games, ringtones, etc. on-the-go. Of course, along with many other applications, there is a Facebook app for certain phones, such as the iPhone or BlackBerrys, allowing users to spend even more time on the site.

Of course, before the boom of social networking, there was another giant growing – file sharing. The first program I remember utilizing this was Napster, where people could upload their music files for others to download. The record labels called it “stealing” and the users called it “sharing.” It’s worth noting here that the artists weren’t really hurt by this, as most of their income came from live shows and other events, not CD sales. It’s the big record companies that were being hurt by this. Today, these big labels are beginning to learn that they simply need to adjust to these changing times, where everything is going online.

iTunes was a major player with their music download service. Soon after, with the release of newer iPod generations, like the iPod Video, one could now download movies, tv shows, video games, and other things. It wasn’t long before everything could be had online. After peer-to-peer file sharing programs like Napster, Morpheus, Limewire and KaZaA, to name a few, things called torrents began to emerge. The problem with these peer-to-peer programs and downloading things from various internet servers, was that if a file was popular, or large in size, it became extremely difficult to download, either because a server was full, or due to the number of people downloading a file, it took a very long time to get it, or if downloading from a single person rather than a server, there was only so much bandwidth that could be used.

Some of the issues were addressed, as one can now upload a file from many users rather than just a single user or server, increasing download speed. The other solution is torrents. Most people use the torrent download client called BitTorrent. Torrents are best suited for new and/or popular files. How it works is, once uploaded, users can download a tiny torrent file from a torrent search engine website, such as thepiratebay.org, or isohunt.com, along with several others. When opening this file with BitTorrent, it searches for all users that are uploading parts of the file, known as seeds, and downloads from them. This means if many people are downloading or have finished downloading but are continuing to share the file, there are more seeds to download from, making things much quicker. This is much faster than downloading from a single server or user.

One can now download or stream various user-created videos, clips and pictures, movies, tv shows, video games, music, computer software and books, just to name a few things. Most of these things are offered for free thanks to internet advertising.

The internet is an enormous place. It’s information and resources seem infinite. What amazes me is that, if one has the proper knowledge of it, you could find just about anything, or anyone, you want online, from all over the globe. Now that’s sharing.