Many-to-many
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Many-to-many is a term that describes a communication paradigm and an associated media form. It is the third of three major Internet computing paradigms. The early Internet applications such as e-mail and Telnet are characterised as "one-to-one" because they are primarily communication means from one individual (or computer) to another.
With the advent of FTP, bulletin boards and then the Web, one can display information that is accessible by many others. Thus we have the second paradigm one-to-many.
With the web 2.0 developments such as file sharing, blogs, Wiki, and social networking, a new set of Internet applications enable many people to both contribute and receive information and information elements can be interlinked across different websites. This kind of Internet application shows the beginning of the "many-to-many" paradigm.
With the evolution to the full "many-to-many" computing paradigm, people can input and receive information to and from the Internet; they will be able to connect and communicate dynamically within a flexibly formed scope; there will be no artificial boundary between information and communication tools, and the definition of "many" will go well beyond people to include entities such as organisations, products, processes, events, concepts and so on.
See also
- ØMQ - a many-to-many socket connector
- Wikipedia:Many-to-many
- Wikipedia:Many-to-many (data model)
