In the early days forums were used for discussion, which involved a 'topic' being started and people responding to an opening statement with 'threads'. This opened up a new market, since users were attempting to have conversation, but it involved having to refresh the page every few seconds to keep up. Instant Messaging soon became a reality, reshaping how people communicated online.
Forums did not die though, and are still very popular today for large discussions involving hundreds of people. In fact, currently it is the only way that hundreds of
However, as for social networking, the first massive site introduced was MySpace, which enabled users to create and customise their own "space", and they could also upload pictures, tell people what their current mood was and share posts about what they are doing at that moment in time. It was very much like making emails publicly viewable, your scrapbook publicly viewable, as well as your music tastes and holiday snaps.
Internet stalking could finally become a reality.
MySpace was soon dominated by the much simpler Facebook, and probably because of its more simplistic layout. Facebook enabled all of the same things as MySpace, except for the customisable user-page. This made internet stalking even easier, since everything you did on Facebook was instantly shared to the world. If you upload photos, the front page of Facebook would be updated with this information. With Facebook also came an amazing feature known as "tagging" in which you can tell Facebook which face belongs to which friend.
However, while this all may sound like a massive "I'm giving out my details to the world" you can actually only show this information to your friends. That's amazing. So if you want to have a private conversation with someone or a group of people (something you couldn't do on forums), then you can!
Twitter is an even simpler version of Facebook, although not as popular. It limits your updates to 140 characters to create a new form of "microblogging" that is even more micro than Tumblr, which is a micro version of Blogger, which is the best one. I personally can't comment much about Twitter, aside from its involvement in many-a-scandal of recent years. The biggest scandal, which started the "Twitter row", which in-turn nearly forced hand to have new privacy laws set on the internet, was the super-injunction scandal of 2011. Virtually everyone who had taken out a super-injunction was revealed on Twitter, as part of a campaign to make press free and to not let the rich buy their privacy.
So each of these different sites plays a different role in society, it seems. I think the best way to describe this is by representing how an update would look on each site.
Facebook status update: I have just eaten a ham sandwich. It was delicious. *Three of your friends like this*
Twitter Tweet: I'm eating a ham sandwich. *Retweeted several times*
Tumblr post: I just ate the most glorious ham sandwich, here is a picture of a ham sandwich from the internet.
Blogger post: Let me tell you about the ham sandwich that I just ate. It all started when I woke up this morning and ate a bowl of cereal. I then took the dog for a walk and saw a man dressed like a lemon. I asked this man why he was dressed like a lemon and he gave me a sour look. That was a pun. I then went home and thought long and hard about what I would have for lunch. The answer then struck me: a simple, humble ham sandwich ... (and so on, and so forth)
So social networking is not only a tool to update the world, but also to challenge the privacy laws set down by society. Oh, and of course it's also the biggest advertising medium in the world now. It's just massive, and dominates many people's lives. And it will continue to get bigger until everyone in the world has the notification icon appear literally in front of their eyes as a holographic image.
I think it's almost safe to say that the world is revolving around social media.
Pete out.
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