Did you know that social media can trace its origins back to 1978 when two computer hobbyists invented the computerized bulletin board system? A new info graphic on Visual.ly carries an interesting timeline that goes back to 1978 and the pioneering work of Ward Christensen and Randy Suess to inform friends of upcoming events.
It then charts the arrival of Mosaic in 1993 and the emergence of the ‘Information Superhighway – aka the internet as we know it in 1994.
Suitable 90s milestones include Geocities, AOL Instant Messenger and Google in 1997 followed by Geocities, Blogger and Friends Reunited in 1998.
Following the bursting of the dot.com bubble we saw the arrival of MySpace in 2002 followed by the launch of Facebook and LinkedIn in 2003 and Twitter in 2006.
Needless to say the last couple of years have been a blast with the launch of the iPhone, the iPad and the arrival last year of Google+ and Pinterest’s sudden prominence this year.
2012 looks set to be an interesting year. Facebook will IPO and achieve 1bn followers while following up swiftly Google+ will reach 400m users by 31 January.
We live in interesting times.
