addThis

it is a mistake to differentiate social media from computing generally. the two terms are synonymous. erroneously differentiating between the two things confuses the issue, which is: what computing is fundamentally or what computing is for fundamentally.

the term social media arises out of a problem in computing, a limit which is thought to apply to computing, that is, to limit what computing can do. only one such limit is thought to exist, and that limit is termed "information overload". information overload does exist, but it is a mistake to view it as a limit on what computing can do. we could call the result of that view an effect. (upon reflection, other similar limits seem to exist, a prominent example being termed "search". the term refers to a perceived limit on the possibility of "finding", and thus is related to the information overload effect.) the term "effect", here, refers to the impression given, or the giving of that impression. this effect is illusory. what is given is a misimpression. information overload only exists in a temporal sense and there in fact is no limit on what computing can do. the problem, however, resides in the term "computing" and the kind of activity which it implies. that activity in fact produces the effect we call computing, in all its forms, but that effect needs to be separately defined. the term computing describes the mechanism which produces the effect. the term social media describes the effect. it could be argued this effect is not well understood. my purpose is to discuss it, and thus the term social media is the correct term for my purpose.

the fundamentals of social media programming are as follows: a user sends a request to a database.

the request is forwarded by a computer generated intermediary or agent called a Page. the word page can be defined two ways. the first usage describes a two dimensional surface that displays images. the second is a kind of agent, an expert assistant. the agent referred to here is of the second, more general type. often taking the form of the first type, and we will find that the two kinds of pages are related in more than just an accidental or a semantic or even metaphorical sense. the word "just" is used here in jest. accident, semantics, and metaphor are indispensable forms of logic.

together the user and the page comprise what is called a client. the request is forwarded to a computer generated agent called a server. according to my conception the server operates a database. this is its essential function.

the first type of request to consider is addThis(), where the variable this contains the one kind of thing that can be added to the database, that being a description. for instance we could add a picture - a digital image - to the database, in which case the variable this would describe the picture, i.e., contain the image data.

there appear to be two other types of requests: changeThis() and showThis(). the variable this in these latter two types of requests identifies the item in the database to be modified or shown.

the agent called a page performs two functions: it shows users items in the database and helps users assemble and then transmit requests. the term "shows" here is not defined except in the most general sense as any effect which could be described as showing something to a user. however, the term implies a certain modality for the production of effects. the term "plays" is not so restricted, so we could generally say the page plays items in the database.

these are the conceptual fundamentals of Social Media. we now need to tiptoe in the direction of implementation, because that seems to be a somewhat delicate procedure.