Social Media History

Social media -- computer-based networks that support interactions among people to create and share information and ideas (see this Wikipedia entry) -- have been here since the late '70s with the first online bulletin board systems hung on terminal programs (e.g., Telnet). 

Matt Smith, in MakeUseOf.com (". . . digital productivity tips and your guide to cool stuff on the Internet"), captures the history of scoial media; it's been around a lot longer than Facebook.

Social Media: Did It Really Start With Facebook? [Geek History Lesson]

15th October, 2013

Today, Facebook dominates social media. The world’s largest social network boasts over 1 billion users, an impressive fraction of the 2.5 billion people who have Internet access worldwide. Google+ has also breached the 1 billion mark, but in terms of logins per day is quite far behind the champion.

The dominance of Zuckerberg’s juggernaut makes it easy to forget there was a time when social media was considered an open field, ready for any to stake their claim. And many did, some years before Facebook entered the fray. So what were those early social networks – and what killed them?

See link for full article -- be sure to click out on the embedded links for the full narrative.