Social Media History from 1994

Social Media: The history and the story
The history and evolution of social media has been a major milestone for both websites and business. While social media may appear to be a relatively new phenomenon on the Internet, with Facebook and Twitter being most popular, the truth is that social networking was not created by these two platforms. Facebook and Twitter came out almost 30 years after the Internet was created. While it is true that Twitter launched in 2004/2006, social media began to transform the world. Social networking is the history and evolution of the Internet.

Social Media History
Geocities allowed people to create websites based on certain urban areas in 1994, and this was when the social networking phenomenon of social networking really took root. More than 1,500 web servers were available in 1994. The Internet was known as the Information Superhighway.

• 1971 was the year ARPA, an agency of government called Advanced Research Projects Agency (or ARPA) sent the first ever email.
• Usenet was established in 1980. This distributed Internet discussion platform has been used by thousands to discuss science, music, literature, and other topics.

These two events signify the birth of social network.

What do people do when they use social media?

• Posting and Sharing
• Reading and watching
• Commenting and linking
• Interacting directly with brands
• Interacting on fan pages
• You can play games
• Chatting and messaging

What is social?

• It’s huge. If Facebook were an actual country, it would be third in terms of population, behind India and China.
• YouTube uploaded over 24 hours of video every minute, which is twice the number in the same year.
• YouTube videos are now viewed more than 2Billion times per day (double the amount in the same year).
• Flickr hosts more images than any other site, with over 4Billion photos. That’s 13 times the number of images in the Library of Congress.
• LinkedIn is used 95% by companies to recruit and find employees.
• Social media has been a major source of new relationships. Last year, 1 out 6 couples were married. This is twice as many people who meet at bars, clubs and other social gatherings.
• Twitter averages more than 27,000,000 tweets per hour, 8 times more than in the previous year.

Who is social, anyway?
Half of all human beings are under the age 30. You can get an idea of where the world’s media habits are heading by watching what kids are doing.

Reaching customers
Social media is a great way to reach influential customers. But it’s also the only way that you can reach your most skeptical customers. Social media is like crack cocaine on the Internet. It is what we want and need. We can’t live without it.

Future business and social
Social media can be a way of thinking. It’s not all about click-throughs or advertising. It’s about creating relationships and cultivating communities of customers. Businesses need to rethink how they market their businesses if they want to grow. Social media requires that businesses make plans. Customers are in the center, and they have control.

All levels of play
Social media is changing the landscape and connecting people like never. Forget about your brand. You don’t own it. It doesn’t matter how much time or money you spend trying to build public opinion. The final decision rests with the public.

Social media is changing everything.

• How do we work
• How we play
• How can we learn
• How to share
• How do we discover
• How to create
• How can we complain
• How to celebrate
• How we grieve
• How can we applaud
• How do we influence
• How can we collaborate
• What do we investigate?
• How to evaluate

The rules for social media are essentially the same as those of media.

1. Listen
2. Engage
3. Be real
4. Be respectful
5. Have fun

Home on the Internet
Social media is the continuing conversation of the world. It’s the source for news and more often than not the home of the Internet. It’s where most people spend the majority of their time when they visit the Internet. Social media is the new mainstream. It acts as a media mouthpiece, and is constantly distributed to the public.