An Internet Giant: Google
Google is one of the biggest corporations in the world today with market capitalization of 190 billion dollars. Google can be considered among the symbols of information age and digital society. Almost all of the Google?s product and service offerings are software and Internet based; so they don?t produce anything that you can touch. They offer virtual products, not real ones. However this doesn?t prevent them from being one of the biggest and strongest brands in the world.
Oxford English Dictionary added verb of 'to Google' to express searching information over web by using Google Search Engine. Google showed people that at information age and in a digital society, the most important thing is information and the ability to process that information. Brain labour is the most important thing in digital society and Google can be considered as a prime example of this fact.
Apple: Technology Eats The Forbidden Fruit
There is no way to understand digital societ by avoiding Apple and their innovations. Apple changed the computer industry with the introduction of Macintosh line of computers. They were the first personal computers which offered a proper graphical user interface. After the big success of Apple Macintosh, many other computer producers tried to emulate the innovations that Apple bring.Apple completely changed the cell phone and smartphone concept when they introduced Iphone at 2007. Iphone was the first prime example of a next generation smartphones.
It might be reasonable to define Iphone a small computer which has the ability of phone. As mentioned before, being connected is one of the most important features of digital society and Iphone has offered people to be power of being connected all the time. Apple did same kind of a revolutionary innovation at tablet market when they introduced Ipad at 2010. Ipad is a small tablet with touchscreen interface. With ipad people no longer required to use personal computers to consume digital content. The main person behind all of these three products was Steve Jobs, who was the CEO of Apple then. He offered products that enabled people to be connect to Internet all the time.
Creating an Ecosystem
He also created an ecosystem named as Itunes which offered various types of contents for these devices includes applications, music, videos, electronic books and magazines. Apple predicted that people will prefer to get the electronical versions of content like music, videos and magazines over the traditional ones. The data we have now shows that their prediction is true. Apple released a press statement at April 2008 which says that Apple surpassed WalMart to become number one music retailer in United States.
Apple's prediction for electronic printed medium seems to be true as well. The chairman of media industry analysts Future Exploration Network, Ross Dawson, predicted at 2010 that the traditional printed newspapers in United Kingdom will be extinct by 2019 and they will be transformed in other shapes. Even today, News Corporation owns world's first Ipad-only newspaper which is named as Daily. Steve Jobs passed away at October 5 2011 and this became headline through the whole world.
Conclusion
In this article, we mentioned some important points about a digital society above. It is important to underline three important points. First of all of them,it has to be connected all the time. This is almost a requirement for being a part of a digital society. Second feature is the importance of brain labor. Brain labor is much more important than any other type of labor in digital society. Another feature of a digital society can be mentioned as producing and consuming the content on a electronic medium.
The Digital Society Privacy And Technology
