Tag: history of social media

The Timeline of Social Media

As millennials or members of Gen Z, most of us have been exposed to some form of social media from quite a young age. Our parents’ generation saw social media begin its growth, we grew up with it, and the coming generation is not going to know a life without it. So, where did it all start, and how did we reach here?

Precursors:

In simple terms, social media refers to computer-based platforms that can be used to share thoughts, ideas, and information through the internet. It gives users quick electronic communication of content, such as personal information, documents, videos, and photos.

But before the internet, there was the Morse Code as a precursor to the social media we know of today. Morse code used a series of dots and dashes which were tapped out by hand on a telegraph machine to communicate some information. The first message using Morse code was sent on 24 May 1844 from Baltimore to Washington D.C.

The emergence of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) in 1969 by the United States Department of Defense and NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) in 1987 by the National Science Foundation was crucial for laying the technical foundation of the Internet.

The Timeline:

With the advent of the Internet, there were a lot of communication services coming up in the U.S such as CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy. They provided users digital communication services through email, bulletin board messaging, and real-time online chatting. But the first online social media is considered to be Six Degrees which was the first platform that made it possible for users to have a profile. A profile is like a virtual character that resembles the user’s identity. Six Degrees was developed by Andrew Weinreich in 1997 and the name was derived from the “six degrees of separation” theory according to which “everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by no more than six degrees of separation”. This platform was shut down in 2000 but is now active again and you can find it with a simple Google search!

The landing page of Six Degrees

A lot of instant messaging applications came up between 1997 and 1999, like AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and Microsoft’s MSN Messenger. Brad Fitzpatrick founded LiveJournal which caused a large number of people to get into blogging.

Friendster was another platform that was launched in March 2003. It allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. Users could share videos, photos, messages, and comments with other members via profiles and networks. it was redesigned as a social gaming platform in June 2011.

Both LinkedIn and MySpace were launched in 2003. LinkedIn was founded as a networking site for career-minded professionals and still remains the social media site of choice for job-seeking people as well as employers looking for qualified professionals. MySpace allowed users to share new music on their profile pages and was the most visited website on the planet by 2006. It was beaten in popularity by Facebook in 2008, which has now grown into a huge networking service that literally everybody knows about.

Modern Social Media:

Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard collegemates and gained popularity over other social media sites because it provided frequently updated content in their News Feed. “The Wall” feature also enabled its users to post publicly. The “Like” button was introduced in 2009 and “The Wall” was replaced by the “Timeline” feature which organized the user’s posts chronologically. Over the years, Facebook has also been the subject of various controversies, including issues related to user privacy, mass surveillance, and political manipulation. The platform has 2.8 billion active monthly users, as of 2020.

Steve Huffman launched Reddit in 2005 as a web-content rating and discussion website where users can vote content up or down. In 2006, Jack Dorsey launched Twitter as a microblogging site where users can post and interact with messages known as “tweets”. As of 2020, Twitter has 186 million active users.

Instagram is another big social media site that was launched in 2010 by Kevin Systrom. It was launched as a photo-sharing website but has now included sharing of media content that can be edited using filters and featuring hashtags. Viewers can like, browse other users’ posts, and view trending content. Instagram was purchased by Facebook in 2012. It has since then come up with several features like messaging, ‘stories’ and live-stream features, and ‘reels’ which allows users to post quick 15, 30, or 60-second video clips. It is said to have 1.386 billion active users as of 2022.

Pinterest was launched in 2010 by Ben Silbermann as an image sharing and social media service site. Users can save and find information using images, GIFs and animated videos. Snapchat is another popular site that was launched in 2011 by Evan Spiegel. Instagram developed its ‘stories’ feature because of the competition from Snapchat which allows users to post pictures and messages that are available only for a short time.

Other popular social media platforms include TikTok, which was founded in 2016 by a Chinese company called ByteDance. Users can post very short videos on the site and it has rapidly grown to be hugely popular among teens and young adults across the world. As of 2021, it has about 1 billion users, even though it has been banned in various countries due to issues with content and security.

Over the years, social media has grown from being a place for people to connect with friends and family, to also being a major platform for businesses and corporations. Sponsored advertisements have been a part of all the modern social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Companies use organic social media marketing to increase brand awareness, develop and nurture relationships with customers, generate leads and increase conversions, and learn from competitors. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter also regularly come under fire for spreading fake news, and causing psychological effects like addiction, and self-esteem issues in teenagers and young adults.

The landscape of social media is rapidly changing and we can only wait and watch how this industry grows and changes in the future.

SOCIAL MEDIA:A BOON OR A BANE FOR SOCIETY AND INDIVIDUALS!

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

SOCIAL MEDIA is a platform which connects you with your friends and other users in a very convenient way, you can upload a profile, create and share your contents with other users.

HISTORY OF SOCIAL MEDIAL.

The first Social Media Site was created in 1997, named as SIX DEGREES. After this invention, social media became famous, sites like LinkedIn and MySpace gained popularity in the early 2000s, and two photo-sharing sites came in the market, named, Photobucket and Flickr. In 2005, an unprecedented thing came, and that is still eminent; YOUTUBE! In Youtube, users can create their profiles, create videos, watch videos, comment on other videos. In 2006, FACEBOOK and TWITTER made headway and gained users throughout the world. These sites are still the most popular SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.

WORKING OF SOCIAL MEDIA?

There are many social networking sites available for the users, and each has billions of users. The very first step, the users are supposed to do is to create their profile, by providing name and an email address in the social networking site. Once the user creates his/her profile, they can create content, share contents, and share pictures with a caption. Apart from this, social media users can find the other users and add them to their friend list, or follow them. In Facebook users add friends, In Instagram and Twitter users, follow other users, In Youtube users subscribe to another user’s channels.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA.

Social Networks: Facebook and Twitter are social networking sites, LinkedIn is a professional social networking site. These sites are used for connecting and exchanging thoughts.

Media Networks: Instagram and Youtube are media networking sites. These sites are used for distributing contents like photographs and videos. One user can create and upload their video or photo, and the other user can like or dislike the same.

Discussion Networks: Reddit is a discussion network. Users leave their responses in the comment section, and, users can respond directly to those comments.

Review Networks: Yelp and TripAdvisor are review networks. These sites add social media aspects to users reviews of products and services.

SOCIAL MEDIA: A BOON!

Connects Friends and Relatives: You can connect your old friends, relatives, make new friends, through Social Media. We live in an era of busy life, these platforms provide us with the chance to stay connected with our loved ones and build relationships with whom we are not able to meet personally.

Job Purpose: As we know, over 90% of the recruiters’ visits and review the social media profile of the job seeker, and they judge them based on their social activities as one’s profile tells about his/her likes and dislikes, hobbies, and skills.

Communication Barrier is Reduced: In social media, we are free to share our views, here, we can communicate with a large number of audiences and put our point. We can make groups, add the users of our choice, and can have conversations or can share information, and many more.

Educational Benefits: In today’s world, every second person is an active user of social media, it provides several chances for self-learning. Heaps of information are there, one may follow or subscribe to suitable pages or channels.

Updated: Pages available on social media are of different categories, which provide different information and news. The pages are updated 24/7, which give the fresh news always.

SOCIAL MEDIA: A BANE!

Addiction: Excess of everything is bad, many studies have shown that the excessive use of social media leads to addiction! The users make this a goal to post a picture every day, to chat with friends for the whole night.

Health Issues: In research, it is found that one negative post of a person will influence 1.3 negative posts by friends, this chain continues and leads to stress and negative moods. Excessive use of social media causes sleep disturbances.

Isolation: Human interaction is suffering because of the rapid increase of social media usage, people hide their actual identities behind their online identities. Face to face communication is reduced.

Reducing Productivity: A lot of chatting is one of the biggest blunders, students spend hours while chatting with their friends, and, waste time. They could have used this time for doing some creative work, learning something new or studies. Wired.com posted studies, which shows the damage to productivity caused by social media.

Privacy Issues: Few people get so much attached to social media, they share all the not required information in their profile. Sometimes your data may be misused for cyber-bullying or defamation.

Social Media is good to the extent when you use it for a good purpose, for gaining knowledge, for being connected with your friends and families. Don’t be dependent on it, don’t make this your life, don’t set your limit inside social media only. MAKE GOOD USE OF IT!