One of my many summer projects (it currently seems like those precious two months are infinitely long) is to crack into the alternative online world of my Taiwanese students, the BBS. This pre-world-wide-web technology is alive and well in Taiwan, for some reason that I can’t fathom. In the Web 2.0 world of Flickr and WordPress, why would tens of thousands of Taiwanese students be using a technology that deprives them of just about every feature of the modern web? Stumped, I asked my friend Ilya. Today he offers a “prelude” to an answer:
Just like IRC is living well, BBS survive the WWW attack and gain more power, energy and features in the era of Web 2.0. It became the modern shrine of coolness, smart slangs emerge just as volcano explode (under the sea of web development) that no one knows but BBS users. Users, yes, I did say the word, average 20 thousands of people online today, in the same dungeon.（請參考維基百科批踢踢條目的說明） Connecting all college students of Taiwan, and their own connected culture. They are borged, and when your are giggling reading the “Hate” board（恨版 | 黑特版） entries and people’s moderation comments （推 | 噓）, you are borged too.
I hope I can get borged … I’ve already had my RA help me register for an account, but now I just have to find the time to decipher the Martian language!
