THE HISTORY OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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INTRODUCTION

Social media has become hugely important to modern

society.

Considering how widespread social media has become,

it can be easy to forget that it has been around for such

a short time historically.

Next, we will explore the history of social media, from its

earliest days in the late ’70s leading all the way up to its

emergence as a staple of modern society.

THE EARLY DAYS

Our journey begins in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, which

was a very different time for technology. Computers

were not in every household, and very few people

outside of academia had heard of the Internet.

Everything started with Bulletin Board Systems, or

BBSes for short.

These BBSes were online meeting places where users could

download files and games, or post messages to each other.

In these times, a landline connection was required to access

a BBS, so BBS groups were generally localised to a user’s

location, and often evolved into in-person events.

AOL AND THE ‘90S

In the ‘90s, AOL took the first steps towards making

social media appear like it is today. Their implementation

of user profiles were very forward-thinking.

By the late ‘90s, social media websites leapt forward,

thanks to the tech boom and dot-com bubble.

Two notable names in social media come from this

period: classmates.com and sixdegrees.com.

Classmates.com, a website for finding people you went to

high school with, still exists and thrives today.

However, sixdegrees.com, while incredibly innovative and

reminiscent of modern social media websites, never took off.

21ST CENTURY BRINGS FAMILIAR SOCIAL

MEDIA

By the early 21st century, social networking began to

come into its own. In rapid succession, Friendster was

launched in 2002 and MySpace and LinkedIn were

launched in 2003.

LinkedIn is still a strong social media site today,

designed as a professional platform for professionals to

network and communicate about career opportunities

and industry-relevant information.

MySpace, while the undisputed king of social media

in the mid 2000s, eventually was dethroned by the

current social media juggernaut that is Facebook.

FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND THE PROMINENCE

OF CURRENT SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook was created in 2004 as a Harvard-only

platform, and remained that way until it was released to

the general public in 2006.

There are many reasons why Facebook ascended to

glory, though one notable moment was in 2007 when

Facebook released an open API, allowing independent

developers to create apps on Facebook. (Twitter

followed suit in 2007 and has seen similar success.)

In 2008 and 2009, social media usage exploded

throughout society, and it hasn’t slowed down ever

since.

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

With nearly forty years of history, social media has

become vitally important to our new digital world.

Social media is utilized by public figures, companies both

large and small, and people from all walks of life.

It’s hard to imagine what progress will have been made

in the world of social media in another forty years.