The Facebook effect by David Kirkpatrick chronicles the history of the precursors to the Facebook technology. This article identifies many programs that came before Facebook with a feature that Facebook either currently uses or a feature that has evolved from one of the early tools.
The article mentions America Online as one of these precursors. AOL was the first social media tool that I ever used and was an integral part of my first computer experience. I remember the days of AOL just like it was yesterday. Surfing the web while constantly receiving emails and instant messages from all my friends. It was a blast for the time besides from the insanely slow dial up connection. I can see how AOL was a building block for Facebook because AOL did an excellent job connecting people. Back in the day if you didn’t have an AOL user name, you weren’t cool. AOL was also the first instant messenger that I used which to this day I still prefer over email. In fact today I still use AOL instant messenger to keep in contact with many people and to share files even though Facebook which completely copied off of AOL’s instant messenger features has pretty much killed a large portion of the user base. Facebook added Facebook messenger in one of its later updates which served as a better instant messenger service because it allowed users to instantly talk with the multitudes of people on their Facebook friends list. Which is more convenient because everyone has their real names and Facebook has more users but the instant messenger lacked the many features that AOL instant messenger had.
The article also credits MySpace as a pre-Facebook. The article states that MySpace had the perfect timing and hit the world at the exact time that it was ready for this type of social Media. In my early years of High School everyone used MySpace and I used it as much as I currently use Facebook. When Facebook opened the doors to High School students, everyone I know shifted from MySpace to Facebook. Facebook was less complex then MySpace and had better security which is why I personally believe most users switched from MySpace to Facebook. MySpace had way too much going on and too many creeps to be frank. I believe the simplicity and organization that Facebook offered became their competitive advantage and is the reason why they won the war against MySpace.
Kirkpatrick states it is a rarity not to use social media in today’s society. I agree with this view because it seems like the majority of people that I know use Facebook and it almost makes one a social outcast or uncool if they exclude themselves. Whenever someone tells me they don’t have a Facebook I look at them like “what?” I wonder how far social media will be integrated into society. I am curious to know if Twitter can take off and get to the point that almost everyone has a Twitter? In the same manor that I look at people funny if they don’t have a Facebook, prior to enrolling in this class I would give someone the same look if they told me they use Twitter. It seems like only one in ten people I know use Twitter and I wonder how far Twitter can go.
This article was very enjoyable to read and I would rate it a 9 out of 10.
ReplyDeleteI too remember the days of AOL, and AIM. Like you I also thought it was great and spent a lot of time on it. Thinking back I remember that I thought AOL was the greatest thing ever, but thinking back on it now, for lack of better words, it is bad in comparison to the technologies we have now. I can’t imagine trying to dialup and wait for pages to load, now a days it makes most people mad if the pages don’t load instantly. After experiencing what I have, if I were able to go back to using AOL I don’t think I would be as happy with it. This leads me to question what we are to look forward to; in a couple of years will people look back on Facebook and consider it an inferior product? I think you touched on an important concept about social media, about how it builds on itself. You described how the features of Facebook have come from previous social media products. I actually used to use AIM up until Facebook added it; I did this because I thought it was more convenient. This is important because social media must realize that they need to make their product better in some way, even if it is just bringing different features together in one place.
ReplyDeleteI think it is amazing how deep social media has penetrated or society; you mentioned how you look at people weird when they don’t have a Facebook. It is so rare that people don’t have a Facebook; it even seems that most adults have a Facebook account. I remember that MySpace was popular, but not nearly as many diverse people used it. Facebook is also used for so many diverse features, that it has become much more useful. I wonder if it will ever decline in popularity, or will it just change and get better as time goes on? I don’t know if Facebook has become so routed in our society that it will be able to survive.
Looking at your post, Zane, and Rory's comment... I totally identify with both of your nostalgia. I feel like I learned how to type by using AIM. But going back to Zane's comment about Facebook precursors and looking at how I feel Facebook and AIM are a very American thing. As the article said, there are Facebook and AIM equivalents everywhere in the world: Friendster in Southeast Asia in the Philippines, CyWorld in Korea, and so on. How come Facebook can't be dominant in other countries? It's undeniable that many people abroad use it too (I was surprised how many people I knew from study abroad had an account) but it doesn't come close to those other replications. Is it the culture? Is it the functionality? I'm just curious.
ReplyDeleteReading these posts made me think about last night working in group projects, using google docs to have 4 people edit a paper simultaneously. I was just thinking about how even writing papers has become part of the new social web. The "nostalgic" part comes from thinking about when our parents were in college, using a typewriter and needing to be extremely careful not to make mistakes, whereas now we made hundreds of changes, and we could each see the others' edits in real time. We are definitely a little bit spoiled by technology.
ReplyDeleteEven the name AOL brings up a certain feeling of nostalgia.
ReplyDeleteBack when I used to have AOL, I used to know the dial-up tone by heart, and used to love when the voice proclaimed "you've got mail!" And the best was the AIM service - everyone had a screen name, and suddenly you never had to stop talking to your friends, even for a few hours between days at school.
I think that if I was to go back, my feeling of AOL would be completely different. I used to think surfing the web was cool on AOL - but now, i'd probably be annoyed by the slow dial-up speed. And since when would I want to use AOL's clumsy web browser? I'm used to Firefox and Chrome, using their quick speed and tabbed browsing to navigate between pages swiftly.
It's a testament on how far we've come in terms of using the internet. Sometimes i'm not sure we appreciate how fast it has evolved. Having broadband used to be a luxury - now i've got wi-fi on my cell phone. Not only does everyone have high-speed, but most of us are involved in a social network or two. As a society, we are clearly becoming more and more integrated with technology.
I've also wondered about twitter because I personally never saw the point with it especially with facebook. I understand a little better now that I've actually started using it that it is a one sided thing that will allow one to follow whomever they wish. I can see the merits it has for a business, but when used on an individual's social scale, it still seems like the perfect "stalking" tool for followers and a way to grab attention to themselves for tweeters. I wonder if that originally was the intent with which Twitter was created in the first place.
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