Recently I’ve noticed a lot of commentary on Social Media/Networking being a “fad” - however watching and participating in the development of electronic communications over the last twenty years, it’s pretty obvious to me that it is in no way a fad. I believe the current trends in social media are the logical progression of digital communications. It’s the next evolutionary step.
Electronic communications have been with us for quite some time. My first experience with electronic communications was way back in the late eighties – when I first discovered the electronic Bulletin Board System (BBS). The BBS allowed users to dial in and exchange electronic mail, both privately and publicly, share files and play text-based games against each other – I even ran a BBS for a while and still have a soft spot for good ASCII art and ANSI colours.
These systems were designed with one thing in mind – communication and collaboration – and they served the purpose well for the time and what they were. The BBS tended to be a fairly location centric creature – due to long distance phone charges, and therefore became fairly social. The first “tweetup” style event I ever went to was in-fact a BBS based picnic (I just can’t remember if it was the Megalink TBBS or Lake Macquarie BBS who hosted it!). The BBS however gave way to the next phase in the electronic communication evolution – Internet E-mail.
It was the beginning of 1990, Tim Berners-Lee had yet to put the finishing touches on the very first web server and browser combination that would later popularise the Internet. It was the days of the Australian Academic Research NETwork (AARNET) which linked together Australian universities. As part of a small enthusiasts group in Newcastle, we secured ourselves access to this network which facilitied the supply of our e-mail and Usenet news. The remnants of Usenet news can still be found in Google’s Groups along with a lot of old archived content. Usenet was again about collaboration and communication – it was about publishing thoughts and ideas to a larger area and recieving feedback, comments and responses. It wasn’t real-time, but it was distributed and popular.
The World Wide Web changed the nature on online communication, turning what had previously been a collaborative communications mechanism into a stream of primarilly one-directional content – creating online content publishers and the user, or consumer. Something which has been slowly, but gradually changing since it’s very conception and popularisation.
The shift away from this really started gaining momentum when blogging began to take off, however blogging was still largely about the content publisher to consumer interaction, still primarily one way – with fairly limited means of response.
Enter the social network.
I first really noticed the phenomenon with LiveJournal – LiveJournal was blogging becomming social. The concept of building networks of friends either due to interests, geography or however they determined to be grouped together. LiveJournal also turned blogging from someone writing content to every day users sharing there thoughts – primarilly for the benefit of their friends.
The rest is fairly recent history – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter.
The big difference now is that companies and marketing experts have now seen the power of these communities and communications tools and are adopting them en masse. I certainly don’t see it as a communications or marketing fad – quite the opposite in fact. I believe Social Media/Networking is here to stay, it’s the logical step in the history of electronic communications and can only continue to grow and evolve from this point. Where it takes us, is going to be as interesting a journey as it’s history.
The challenge for business however, will be to select and utilise these tools effectively and in a way that the existing user communities are not only willing to tolerate, but embrace as a valid way of communicating back to businesses.
… Reading this article again, I’m feeling a little old 
I think that without a doubt social media is changing the landscape for advertisers. Twitter, facebook, blogs, video, etc is a way to speak to consumers and not just at them.
Hi… thanks for putting Social Media history into perspective. I think a lot of current social media “content” is a fad; much of it holds little value and is the result of the “near real-time” speed in which it spreads. But the concept of using computers to communicate and socialise, seems like something that will continue.
And social media extends further than just the usual suspects. Take for instance:
http://www.couchsurfing.org/
Hi Brad,
Thanks for your comment. I can’t argue with the point that a lot of the current social “content” is a fad, most of it is, most of it contains no value at all and this “content” will disappear into the void.
The next few years in digital media will certainly be an interesting one as the industry matures.
Jared.
Completely understand what your stance in this matter. Although I would disagree on some of the finer details, I think you did an awesome job explaining it. Sure beats having to research it on my own. Thanks