Social media has been around since long before the likes of Myspace and Facebook. Technological advances have transformed our ability to connect with one another online, but let us take a look at where it started.
The most easily recognizable early ancestor would be the Bulletin Board System (BBS), which appeared in the late 1970s and remained popular until the mid 1990s. A BBS would generally be run by one system operator as a hobby, from his or her home. Themes for BBSes were far-reaching, from various hobbies and interests to software piracy to pornography. Access was achieved, one at a time, via a dial-up connection to the system operator’s phone line, incurring calling costs which, if calling long distance, could end up very expensive.Therefore users of a particular BBS tended to be localised, and meet-ups were common, like a pre-Twitter Tweetup. Incendiary, I met my first boyfriend at the age of 15 at BBS Coffee Meetup – turns out he was not meant to be, but my life long love for Social Media was born.
At the same time, commercial outfits such as Prodigy and CompuServe launched their services online. These services were also very popular, and allowed more mainstream access to social networking – for a fee.
By 1995, the world wide web had become available via private ISPs. Usenet, a discussion format which resembled a more easily accessible form of the BBS, became incredibly popular, giving birth to internet staples such as Godwin’s Law, which states that as a discussion continues, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis approaches one. This paved the way for what we now know as the internet forum, which is still a popular format today.
In 1996, AOL launched ICQ, the first mainstream instant messaging (IM) system, today having over 100 million accounts registered. IM systems today include MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Skype and many others 
The late 1990s saw the launch and rise of blogging sites such as Livejournal, Open Diary, Diaryland and Blogger (now owned by Google). Blogging became incredibly easy and accessible, though it had been in existence in one form or another since the days of the BBS. These sites allowed comments and feedback on posts, and also the development of networks and friends lists.
One of the most important social media developments was the launch of Napster in 1999. Napster enabled the sharing of mp3s online and was shut down in this capacity in 2001 due to mass copyright violation. It did, however, pave the way for P2P (peer-to-peer) sharing, where users make their resources (bandwidth, files etc) directly available to others. This has led to the development of Bit Torrent clients, which source different parts of a file from multiple users (“seeds”), relieving the strain once borne by an individual resource.
Continuing the theme of copyright violation, 2005 saw Youtube for the first time. Now owned by Google, Youtube allows users to upload video clips up to ten minutes in length, post comments and further video responses. Copyright violation was rife in the early days of Youtube, though now broadcasters freely offer many programs through the site.
In 1997, the site seen as the earliest form of social media as we know it today (known as “Web 2.0”) was launched. Six Degrees (derived from the concept of the six degrees of separation) offered extended networking options to friends, friends of friends and friends of friends of friends. Six Degrees boasted 1 million users at the height of its popularity, though is no longer online. Next came Friendster in 2002, which today is most popular in Asia and continues to grow. 2004 saw the launch of Myspace, which allowed users full customisation of their profile as well as the addition of music and video. By 2006 it was the most popular social networking site, overtaken by Facebook in 2008. Facebook also launched in 2004, and today boasts over a staggering 400 million users. In 2003 we saw the launch of LinkedIn, a social network for businesses, now with over 70 million members.
Digg, a site allowing users to vote on the links of others, was launched in 2004. It took off in 2006 and can cause huge surges in popularity for particular sites. Delicious (del.icio.us), launched in 2003 works on a similar principle, with users voting on tagged web content from other users. Photobucket and Flickr arrived in 2003 and 2004 respectively, allowing users to share photographs and host for embedding in blogs and other social media.
Twitter arrived in 2006, capturing the imagination of celebrities and non-celebrities alike. Today the microblogging website, allowing short announcements of 140 characters, has over 100 million users. Technology today has advanced to such an extent that we are able to combine almost all of the top social media and social networking tools to be used in conjunction with one another.
As mentioned earlier, image hosting sites can be used for embedding elsewhere on the web, and Youtube (as well as Vimeo and other video-hosting sites) for posting video clips on Facebook, MySpace or elsewhere. These clips can be Tweeted (that is, published via Twitter), voted for via Digg or Delicious, or “Liked” on Facebook.
Sound too easy? It gets better. The introduction of mobile web technologies with Microsoft Windows, Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone iOS operating systems has allowed for access to social media from mobile phone handsets, and also from the newly-introduced Apple iPad. It is so easy to link in to these services – often many at a time, updating Twitter and Facebook in unison, for example – that of course new real-time social media sites have sprung up. The real-time, location-based network Foursquare encourages users via a range of incentives to post their whereabouts, be it indulging in retail therapy, or having a pint down the pub. It even uses GPS (Global Positioning System) to make sure you aren’t cheating.
So where to next? Just as Star Trek helped us out with inspiration for automatic doors, mobile phones, Bluetooth headsets and USB flash drives, perhaps we should be tuning back in to the world of science fiction for clues. 2002’s Minority Report seemed impossibly futuristic less than a decade ago with personalized biometric advertising and advanced touchscreen computer systems, not dissimilar to those also seen in CSI. A glimpse into the future? Most probably, IMHO.
Leave a comment and share your stories about using some of these early platforms!
Tags: #smday, AOL, BBS, Blogger, Bulletin Board System, CompuServe, Diaryland, Digg, facebook, Friendster, Godwin's Law, History of Social Media, ICQ, IM, Instant Messaging, Linkedin, Livejournal, Mashable's Social Media Day, MSN, Myspace, Napster, OpenDiary, P2P, Prodigy, Six degrees, Skype, Social media, Social Media History, twitter, Usenet, Web 2.0, Yahoo, Youtube
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