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First email
The first sent email can be traced down to 1966. -
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service provider in the United States. CompuServe was founded in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio. This would be the drive behind the digital movement and social media as we know it today. -
UserNet
allowed people to communicate through a virtual newsletter, articles or posts to newsgroups. Usenet systems were the brainchild of Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, good work chaps. -
Period: to
Home computers
during this period we see the introduction of home computers and their immediate rise of prevalence -
The Well and GENie
GENie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was an online service created for GE. This was a critical moment in the history of social media in business and in general. -
Listserv
worked effectively like a mailing list to allow users to contact multiple users in one email. Commonplace today but revolutionary at the time. -
IRCs
Internet Relay Chats (IRC's) first appeared in 1988 and were still in use well into the 1990's. They were used for file sharing, link sharing and generally keeping in touch. -
The Palace
allowed users to interact with one another on a graphical chat room server, which they termed palaces. Each user would have their own graphical avatar overlaid on a graphical backdrop. -
Blogging sites
Right before the millennium, we see blogging sites like LiveJournal gain popularity and begin to manifest into what it is today -
Sixdegrees.com
SixDegrees.com was the first ever social media site. The site enabled users to upload profile pictures and connect with others. Six degrees also let users make friends with each other and expand their social groups. Incredibly, in 2000 it was purchased for $125 million and later shut down in 2001. -
LunarStorm
this was one of the first commercial advertisement-financed social networking websites. A strategy that would become increasingly important as the decade progressed. It was aimed at teenagers and developed in Sweden. In 2007 it had grown to an impressive 1.2 million members, 70% of which were between the ages of 12 and 17. The site was shut down in 2010. -
LinkedIn
Its devotion to social media for business has enabled its steady growth into one of the most popular social media sites in the world. -
MySpace
quickly became "the" social media site at the time. You could completely customize your profile but also you could embed music and videos. An important moment in the history of social media and pretty revolutionary at the time. -
Photo Sharing
Photo sharing platofrms like Flickr and Photobucket become popular and would become the inspiration for modern day Instagram -
YouTube
YouTube enabled the ability to create and share media over very long distances was such a game changer that it has become something of a behemoth every since. -
Facebook
Since it's debut, Facebook has substantially grown in popularity. FB is the 6th most visited site of all time as of 2017. -
Twitter
We see the birth of currently the most popular social media platform. Twitter is thought to grow even more than it already is and to have impact on future political elections. -
Music Sharing
We see platforms like Limewire and Itunes become relevant as the music industry welcomes the social media society and needs to deliver more and more content. -
Instagram
The modern day photo sharing platform is born. Developed by Facebook, IG has rapidly gained popularity and was voted 3 most popular social media platform behind Twitter and Facebook in 2017.
