The History of Social Networking

The History of Social Networking

Communicating with friends and family from long distances has always been a concern for humans. As we are social creatures; therefore, we have always relied on interaction to improve our relationships.

What is social networking?

When it was impossible or inconvenient to have face-to-face discussions, people have dreamed up lots of creative solutions. The origins of social networking are decidedly older than you can imagine. Sites like Facebook are the natural result of several centuries of social network development.

Social networking is the method of increasing the number of one’s social or business contacts by making connections through people, often on social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Now, along with social media there are many tools available specially for business to grow their business or even sell online through social media, and networking.

The history of social networking and social media

While social networking has gone on as long as civilizations themselves have subsisted, the exceptional potential of the Web to promote connections has directed to an exponential and continuous development of that phenomenon.

Timeline of social media history

Here is the list of very social media and social networking systems all around the globe. Despite of many people idea, Facebook is not the first social media ever, but it can be counted as a very first popular social networks that reached to millions of users instantly. Advent of social connections back to sending email in 1971 and social media sharing stories and pictures and finding mutual friends back to LinkedIn in 2002. However, LinkedIn was more about connecting the professional users to find jobs.

E-Mail (1971)

The first email was sent within two devices sat right next to each other. They were connected only by the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network).

  • ARPANET: was designed by the U.S. Department of Defense and later lead to the evolution of the Internet.
  • “SNDMSG“: was an application which enabled users to write, address, and send a message to the mailbox of the other user. A mailbox was just a file with a specific name. At that time, the sender could only add the data; they could not overwrite or read what was in the mailbox.
  • “CPYNET“: was a file transfer application which composes and reads files on a remote computer. Ray Tomlinson decided to combine these two programs, so the message could drive within the network connection to remote mailboxes in addition to adding messages to limited mailbox files.
  • Ray Tomlinson is the one to decide on the “@” symbol for use in e-mail. He said the content of the first e-mail was something like “QWERTYUIOP.”

BBS (1978)

Bulletin board system (BBS) was a network application devoted to sharing or exchange simple messages on a network. The BBS became the first of online society before the World Wide Web appeared.

USENET (1980)

Usenet was a worldwide spread Internet conversation system. Users read and post messages to categories, identified as newsgroups.

The difference between a BBS and Usenet is the lack of a primary server and dedicated manager. Usenet divided between a massive conglomeration of servers which store and forward messages to one another called news feed.

Friendster (2002)

Friendster became a social gaming site in 2011 and promoted in Southeast Asia, so it is a significant site in that area of the world.

LinkedIn (2002)

LinkedIn which is still working and has millions of users was known for its connection to the professional users or employees. Soon, having a LinkedIn profile become necessary for professional to build their resume and show it up to millions of employers.

Myspace (2003)

Myspace is a social networking platform designed by Specific Media LLC and Justin Timberlake. In 2006, Myspace became the most visited social networking site in the world. In 2008, it was overtaken by Facebook in the number of users.

Facebook (2004)

Facebook launched at Harvard University to connect students. As of 2011, Facebook has more than 800 million users.

Mark Zuckerberg and his college friends organized Facebook. The platform’s membership was limited to Harvard students but extended to other universities in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at many other universities, and finally for anyone aged 13 and over.

Twitter (2006)

Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to send and view text-based posts known as “tweets.” Twitter quickly reached worldwide popularity, with more than 200 million active users as of 2011 producing over 200 million tweets per day.

Instagram (2010)

Instagram is an American photo and video sharing platform which was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010. The first device was iOS on which they lunched Instagram. later, Facebook bought Instagram and it was nominated for teen choice award for choice social network. Instagram now is one of the main platforms of small and medium sized business.

Though, there are some limitations to this app such as not adding more than one link in Instagram bio. Fortunately, adding multiple links is possible with iLink in which you can as many links as you need to any social media bio.

TikTok (2016)

TikTok is basically a Chinese short video sharing platform and social networking by ByteDance. TikTok is one of the most popular apps among young generation which has lots of features that is attractive to create short video.

Conclusion

Most of us now get news from the Internet–especially the younger ones. Social networking has moved from our PCs to our smartphones. Therefore, it has become more ‘intrusive.’ Do we want to know what you had for breakfast at work or your cousin just lost her car keys? We should use them in the right amount.

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The History of Social Networking
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The History of Social Networking
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Communicating with friends and family from long distances has always been a concern for humans. We are considered social animals; this is why we have always ...
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