A Look Back at the Social Networks of the Past

GigaOm writer Brian McConnell takes a look at some of the social networks from 1980-2000 today. It’s a worthwhile read, especially for those who weren’t born when that decade started. He mentions BBSs, Friendster and a few others.

Here are some of my additions:

• One of my first experiences was with MUDs – these were little missions inside a computer game. It was setup in a large lecture hall on VAX systems and while some may have used it for gaming, my friends just used it to chat about girls
• I used Prodigy for a while – the yellow screen and those ugly huge graphics
• I tried Compuserve but hated it – those stupid addresses like 71324.2429@compuserve.com and then you had the HAM radio type channels – was just a complete mess
• Let’s also not forget IRC – this was (and is) a social networking tool
• I remember AOL very well as in upstate New York there was no local access number when I was in college. My first bill was $500 not including $400 in long distance charges. I think Brian doesn’t realize the power AOL had in the early days.
• Brian mentions Geocities, another one that changed the game. You see back then people wrote HTML by hand (some still do) and for the average user it was just more than they wanted to handle. Geocities changed that – Geocities might also have revolutionized use of the man digging a hole in the underconstruction page – no where was this graphic used more than on Geocities pages

It sure is amazing how far we have come. What networks do you remember? I am especially interested in insight from outside the U.S.