A look back at the history of social media can help us better move forward as it continues to rapidly evolve.
There are social media solutions for almost every need. These are exciting times for the advertising industry. I enjoy every day of exploring the potential of social media to advance ad agency new business and share what I'm learning with you.
Social media, in an incredibly short period of time, has become mainstream. Millions of people connect through social media channels daily. To better understand where it is going, it is important to review its brief past.
Webdesigner Depot, has created an excellent summary of the history of social media. Changes occur almost on a daily basis but this look back can help you put rising popularity of social media into context. The following are the major topics covered in this resourceful article, that highlight's social media's history along with summaries of the various platforms that continue to evolve:
- Precursors to Social Media: Usernets, BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems), IRC, ICQ, and Instant Messaging
- Early Social Networks: Dating Sites, Forums, Six Degrees (the first modern social network) and Live Journal
- Major Advances in Social Networking: Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook
- Other Major Social Networks: Multiply (family friendly social network), Orkut (Google's social network), Kontain (allowing users to follow each other through photos, videos, and music, rather than just simple status updates)
- Niche Social Networks: Ning, Media Sharing, Photobucket. Flickr, YouTube, Revver
- Social News and Bookmarking: Delicious, Digg, Reddit
- Real Time Updates: Twitter, Posterous, Tumblr,
- Lifestreaming and Lifecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, FriendFeed, WP Lifestream
Click the following link to read the article, pass it along to your clients: The History and Evolution of Social Media
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