Ever since I watched the movie “Message in a bottle”, I have been wondering if there was an equivalent on the web of sending a message in a bottle. I find the experience special. Is it sending a message randomly to any email address? Is it leaving an anonymous comment somewhere? Is it posting an anonymous message on a website dedicated to send messages in a bottle? Is it tweeting with no followers or facebooking without any friends? What is it? Is it possible to design a system to send a message in a bottle on the web? I couldn’t figure it out. Then, I analyzed what type of communication was the act of sending a message in a bottle.
The message in a bottle is not sent to be received, it is not addressed to someone in particular, so it can’t happen in the directional modes of communication that exist on the web. The message in a bottle doesn’t have an audience, it can’t be part of a network, and it can’t be sent to someone directly, even randomly. The message in a bottle might never be found and the author might be forgotten forever. In essence, the message in a bottle is an individual’s act to express his or her voice in front of the entire universe. It’s fundamentally an act of self expression between an individual and the universe.
So with that clarification in mind I finally got it. A message in a bottle on the web is simply expressing yourself in your own terms by creating your own website fully independently. The message in a bottle is the first article of your website, whether it is just a webpage or the first blog post, this is your voice.
I got the idea of creating a blog last year. I never really blogged before so I took the time to see if that was serious and started writing articles privately to see if I had things to say. As it turned out, I do. This is why there are many articles from last year already existing before this post. I mainly created this blog to learn more about everything that interest me and share publicly what I already know. If you read this, it’s because I finally decided to make my blog public, this is my first public post, this is my message in a bottle and as any learning experience begins in the programming world:
Hello world.
Posted in Thinking, U.X, Communication
