Family Tree

In order to fully understand where something is headed, I feel it is important to know where it came from.  I think everyone nowadays knows something about "social media" or "social networking."  Facebook, Myspace, Twitter are names that are thrown around everyday.  We know what they are, and most of us use them almost religiously (well maybe not Myspace anymore).  But where did they come from? Did they appear from thin air? Is it the social big bang theory? Poof! There it is and here it will be? Or is it something that has evolved over time into what we know today?

Over the past week I have researched the history of social media and took an in depth look at where this phenomenon arose from.  By no means do I consider myself and expert on the technology behind this or the progression, but it has given me a greater understanding and that is the goal of this blog.  I will outline the timeline and touch on some key points that have lead to social media as we know it today.  I will also chime in on where business and companies began to tap into this expansive resource.

Social media is an invention that came about the way scores of other inventions come about, it filled a need.  There are a lot of inventions and practices that are far off ancestors of social media but to me there is one that exemplifies a solid start to what we know today.  In 1978 computer hobbyist by the name of Ward Christensen and Randy Suess developed the Computerized Bulletin Board System, CBBS or BBS for short.  Designed after the cork bulletin board commonly found in offices allowed people to communicate and stay in the loop from their computers.  Users logged in to share or view "bulletin" messages or even play games.  The technology behind it is out of my realm of knowledge, so I will not attempt to explain, but the impact of this invention is monumental.  Many forums and social networking sites do the exact same thing as these BBS's did, just on a much larger scale.  These BBS's stayed hot until the mid 1990's when the rise of the World Wide Web began to dominate the tech world.  There was not much of a corporate influence with BBS, if any at all.  These were run by hobbyists for hobbyist, and were largely local (due to dial up and long distance rates).  The importance of this technology cannot be understated when moving forward.

Fast forward to the mid to late 90s.  The Internet and World Wide Web has opened up the world to our fingertips.  The Internet forever changed the way we live our lives in many many ways, and further progressed social media.  I could go on forever the impact the Internet has had on business, but we are sticking to social media so let's keep moving!

In 1994 GeoCities was introduced as BHI or Beverage Hills Internet.   It was designed around "neighborhoods" where users would create their profiles by determining which neighborhood they wanted to belong to.   Users were called Homesteaders and by late 1995 there were 14 neighborhoods, upon when it changed its name officially to GeoCities.  GeoCities continued to grow, and in 1997 social media and business began their courtship when GeoCities introduced advertisements on user pages.  Eventually the company went public, with shares rising to upwards of $100.  While GeoCities popularity declined over subsequent years (leading to closure in 2009) at its peak it was the third most visited site on the Internet behind AOL and Yahoo.  To me, GeoCities was important because the corporate world began to notice the influence a social networking site could have (why else would google buy for $3.57 Billion?).

AOL blasted the world with Instant Messaging in 1997.  Nuff said

Keep trotting forward to the end of the century...towards the dot com bubble.

Whewww, not that is past us..lets get to the good stuff! 2002, Friendster gains 3 million users in the first three months by pioneering connecting real friends to each other.  2003 comes Myspace, Facebook debut's in 2004, and Twitter in 2006.  Also during this time period Linkedin, Foursquare, Photobuck, Flickr.  These are just a few examples of the sites that began sprouting up during this time period.  These sites garnered mainstream and corporate attentions.  The social impact of these sites is huge, but the most fascinating aspect of these sites is the impact it can have on the way businesses become part of a person's inner circle of friends.  Think about the impact it can have on a companies bottom line if their customers look to them as "friends".  Your friends are who you turn to for advice; your friends want what is best for you, and held guide you.

There are many companies who are still behind the times on this.  It is not a fad, it is not going away.  It will only grow and become more a part of our lives.  My grandmother has a Facebook for goodness sake! We want to be connected to these people and we want to connect to more people of similar interests.  Companies can gain a tremendous following by effectively leveraging social media and becoming part of the in crowd with their customers.

Next week I am going to look at post 2000 when the influx of mainstream sites took the online social world by storm.  Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, etc will be covered and what businesses jumped on it right away.

Stay tuned...