Many-to-many

For other uses, see Many-to-many (data model).

Many-to-many is a term that describes a communication paradigm. It is the third of three major Internet computing paradigms. The early Internet applications of e-mail, FTP and Telnet are characterized as "one-to-one," because they are primarily communication means from one individual (or computer) to another.

With the advent of the World Wide Web, one can display information on a website that is accessible by many others. Thus we have the second paradigm one-to-many.

With developments such as file sharing, blogs, Wiki, and tagging, a new set of Internet applications enable:

1. people to both contribute and receive information and,
2. 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 organizations, products, processes, events, concepts and so on.

See also

• One-to-one (communication)
• One-to-many
• Web 2.0
• Peer-to-peer
• Network effect
• Chat rooms
• Multicast

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