Social Media History Started Years Before You Think It Did [Chart]

My first experience ever with social media was on IRC in about year 2000. It makes me laugh when I think about how it was considered rude back then to talk to more than one person at a time. Everyone did it anyway, but if you accidentally typed the wrong thing in the wrong window, you were busted. These days we have several conversations going at the same time on Twitter, and nobody thinks anything of it. Social media was around long before IRC though. This social media history chart shows us that.

When I think of social media history, I think of it as really beginning with Twitter. I didn’t open an account on Facebook until I had been on Twitter for a year. The beginning of 2009 was a magical time on Twitter, and for me that is when it all started. If you look at this social media history timeline though, you’ll see the beginnings of social media as far back as 1969.

Looking at this list brings back so many memories. I remember when Hotmail was first released, and how everyone thought it was such a big deal to have a web-based email. I also remember the first time I tried Google, and trying to wrap my brain around what a search engine was.

Cendrine Marrouat originally created this timeline last year, but a lot has changed since then, so she updated it accordingly this March. Even since March a lot has changed, and it could stand to be updated again. Instagram and Vine both need to be added (amongst others). Of course, the social services on this timeline barely scratch the surface of all the ones available. I can’t even imagine how long a comprehensive list would be. That’s the thing about social media, it changes so often that there are always new things to add to lists like these, and new memories to make in our virtual world.