Module 5

Module 5 of the book seems to focus on push and pull communications. Even after reading the module, I am still trying to understand the distinction between the two and think that I’ll be going through it again to see if it clicks better.

From what I have read, and understand, pull communication is when forms of communication are pulled to a user. The ways in which they are pulled to a user is through subscriptions, feeds, podcasts and such. Pull technology is when a user searches for something which interests them and pulls the information to them.

Push communication seems to be the opposite. It is when a user puts information out onto the Web. The different ways that a user can push out information is through blogging, microblogging, chatting, messaging on social networks and sharing information online. Push communication is easier for me to understand than pull communication. But, in understanding push communication, I did find myself understanding push communication more.

While the terms for the different forms of online communication are not something I will think on much, the categories for them do make some sense. To me, it was interesting to learn some of the history of instant messaging. I was never into instant messaging much until the last few years so I did not know the history behind it until reading about it in the module.