Saturday, September 17, 2011

A Condensed History of Social Media

Social Media has recently become an integral part of our everyday life, but has been around since long before Facebook and Twitter. What has changed is that social media is now widely available, whereas it used to be limited to those with in-depth understanding of technology and underground hacker circles.


Social media has always been about two things: gathering and data collection. Put the two together and you have a network of information exchange. Part of the lure of social media has to do with "finding things out", especially if the information in question is something that you really should know about (eg things like Facebook stalking). It makes sense, therefore, that social media start phone 1950.Broj "phone phreak" group showed up, fascinated by the telephone system and how to infiltrate. Part of what started phreak movement was the high cost of making phone calls. Those are the technological possibilities is not all they could find a way around it, hacking into the line they do not have to pay. Also, the practice of abduction of a telephone line test circuits and conferences so that they could hold a virtual conference.


In the 1970s, a new form of social media showed up. I called BBS, or "bulletin board system." When the first BBSes appeared on the scene, they are small servers are powered from a PC connected to a phone modem. BBSes worked much the way many forums and blogs, not today, people can participate in discussion boards, online games, upload and download files, etc. The main problem is that the computer is not a standard household goods. They are large, expensive, slow and inefficient, thus severely limiting the number of people actively involved in BBSes.


In the 1980s, social media was very underground phenomenon. There were some legitimate BBSes, but the vast majority of them were somehow associated with adult content, pirated software, hacking theory, anarchist movements, and the virus code. Due to the nature of much online interaction, real names and identities are strictly guarded, and the web is not the place for the exchange of personal information.


Social Media has become more "social" in the early 1990s when the World Wide Web became available to the masses. Site as CompuServe and Prodigy, the first efforts to engage social media to more mainstream culture, but its early iterations are slow and expensive. As the Internet becomes increasingly available, however, the service has become faster, chat systems such as AOL Instant Messenger has begun to take hold.


the next big trend is Napster, opening the possibility of information exchange and capacity-building type of media that can be shared via the Internet. Napster music is available online, for free. By recording labels and artists began to slow distribution of copyrighted material, Napster was the main source for media distribution.


The next phase of social media has come with the advent of social networking sites. "Friendster" was the first of its kind, but was quickly trumped for MySpace and Facebook then. As the Internet has become an indispensable tool for everyday life, people have begun to let go of the fear of revealing their true identity, moreover, many have put their full life on the screen for almost anyone to watch.


It's hard to imagine a world without social media now. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and a big blogosphere is not only used for entertainment purposes, but have become a big part of business and political interaction. So, what is the next step? It was a lot of buzz about Google Wave and the ability to present to provide a platform for real-time productivity and collaboration, not just talk about it.

0 comments:

Post a Comment