History of Social Media

Watch the following short video about the History of Social Media: 

Social media is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.” (social media) While many consider social media to only exist through computers, some argue that humans have been developing technologies to facilitate communication since the beginning of human history, and that the term can apply to older technologies like the telegraph, or even simple paper postings from medieval Europe (Carton 2009, Ritholz, 2010, Grovo 2012). Settle’s 2012 article defines social media slightly different than the Oxford dictionary He says that social media are “user-driven and their success depends on users contributing content, not just consuming content.” Some of the more familiar platforms of social media include blogs, microblogs, social networking sites, professional networks, video sharing, and content-driven communities. (Walaski 2013)

Like social media, social networks are not a new concept. The Oxford dictionary defines a social network as, “1) a network of social interactions and personal relationships. 2) a dedicated website or other application that enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc.” (social network) Only two years after the internet was widely adopted in 1995, the world's first social network sites, theglobe.com Links to an external site. and sixdegrees.com Links to an external site., were born (Grovo). They inspired other social media sites, including the still-popular blogger.com Links to an external site., and the dating-turned-gaming website friendster.com Links to an external site. (Grovo). Their ever-growing success sparked the interest of entrepreneurs, and by the early 2000s some of the more well known social media sites, such as facebook Links to an external site., myspace Links to an external site., digg Links to an external site., and linkedin Links to an external site., were started (Grovo).