In five decades, social media has evolved from direct electronic information exchange, to virtual gathering place, to retail platform, to vital 21st-century marketing tool operated under the user generated contents and uses cloud computing technologies.
In this article, Brief History of Social Network Services, for easier understanding, we divide it into three (3) different categories, and the explanation about each will follow.
- The beginning of Social Networking
- The Internet Expansion (The transitional growth of social networks)
- The full-blown of Social Network Services
Collective icons for Social Network Site
Before you continue, we recommend you to read about SOCIAL NETWORK SERVICE/SITE AND HOW IT WORK
1 - The Beginning of Social Networking
Social network service started with the BBS. Short for Bulletin Board System, these online meeting places were effectively independently-produced hunks of code that allowed users to communicate with a central system where they could download files or games and post messages to other users. Accessed over telephone lines via a MODEM, BBSes were often run by hobbyists who carefully nurtured the social aspects and interest-specific nature of their projects – which, more often than not in those early days of computers, was technology-related. BBSes continued to gain popularity throughout the ‘80s and well into the ‘90s, when the Internet truly kicked into gear.
But there were also other avenues for social interaction long before the Internet exploded onto the mainstream consciousness. One such option was CompuServe, a service that began life in the 1970s as a business-oriented mainframe computer communication solution, but expanded into the public domain in the late 1980s. CompuServe allowed members to share files and access news and events.
But if there is a true precursor to today’s social networking sites, it was likely spawned under the AOL (America Online) umbrella. In many ways, and for many people, AOL was the Internet before the Internet, and its member-created communities (complete with searchable “Member Profiles”, in which users would list pertinent details about themselves), were arguably the service’s most fascinating, forward-thinking feature.
Home Page of Defunct Social Site of AOL
Yet there was no stopping the real Internet, and by the mid-1990s it was moving fully advance. Yahoo! had just set up shop, Amazon had just begun selling books, and the race to get a PC in every household was on. And, by 1995, the site that may have been the first to fulfill the modern definition of social networking was born.
2 - The Internet Expansion (The Transitional Growth of Social Networks)
Though differing from many current social networking sites in that it asks not “Who can I connect with’? but rather, “Who can I connect with that was once a schoolmate of mine?" Classmates.com proved almost immediately that the idea of a virtual reunion was a good one.
That same level of success can’t be said for SixDegrees.com. Sporting a name based on the theory somehow associated with actor Kevin Bacon that no person is separated by more than six degrees from another, the site sprung up in 1997 and was one of the very first to allow its users to create profiles, invite friends, organize groups, and surf other user profiles.
Unfortunately, this “encouragement” ultimately became a bit too pushy for many, and the site slowly devolved into a loose association of computer users and numerous complaints of spam-filled membership drives. SixDegrees.com folded completely just after the turn of the millennium.
Other sites of the era opted solely for niche, demographic-driven markets. One was AsianAvenue.com, founded in 1997. A product of Community Connect Inc., which itself was founded just one year prior in the New York apartment of former investment banker and the future Community Connect CEO, AsianAvenue.com was followed by BlackPlanet.com in 1999 and by the Hispanic-oriented MiGente.com in 2000.
The Rise and Fall of BlackPlanet (What Happened to BlackPlanet.com?)
3 - The Full-blown of Social Network Services
In 2002, social networking hit really its stride with the launch of Friendster. Friendster used a degree of separation concept similar to that of the now-defunct SixDegrees.com, refined it into a routine dubbed the “Circle of Friends”, and promoted the idea that a rich online community can exist only between people who truly have common bonds. And it ensured there were plenty of ways to discover those bonds.
Although briefly enjoying success in Indonesia and in the Philippines, Friendster has since abandoned social networking and now exists solely as an online gaming site.
Introduced just a year later in 2003, LinkedIn took a decidedly more serious, sober approach to the social networking phenomenon. Rather than being a mere playground for former classmates, teenagers, and cyberspace, LinkedIn was, and still is, a networking resource for business people who want to connect with other professionals. In fact, LinkedIn contacts are referred to as connections. It is currently having excess of 900 million users as of 2023, as reported by LinkedIn's second quarter of fiscal year 2022 update.
LinkedIn Page
MySpace, also launched in 2003. Though it no longer resides upon the social networking throne in many English-speaking countries; that honor now belongs to Facebook just about everywhere – MySpace was once the perennial favorite.
As expected, the ubiquitous Facebook now leads the global social networking pack. Founded like many social networking sites, by university students who initially peddled their product to other university students, Facebook launched in 2004 as a Harvard-only exercise and remained a campus-oriented site for two full years before finally opening to the general public in 2006. The term, Social Media was introduced and soon became widespread.
Facebook Page
The social network service started with an online meeting place, Bulletin Board System (BBS). It was effectively independently-produced hunks of code that allowed users to communicate with a central system where they could download files or games and post messages to other users.
Now, the ubiquitous Facebook social network service owned by Mark Zuckerbag and launched in 2004 leads the global social networking pack.
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