It began in 1971 when the first email was sent. By 1978 we had the first BBS (bulletin board system), which was exchanging data over phone lines; this BBS, called Usenet, became the first online BBS in 1994 and the first social network site (SNS) was also established in 1994. This was almost the beginning of the participation by literally thousands of people in networks of one kind or another. Figure 3.9 is an infographic of the history of social networking extracted from http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/history-of-social-networking/

Figure 3.13 The history of social networking
Source: Online School (2010)

Besides the innate desire of human beings to connect or network, one reason for the phenomenal growth of social networking is the founding of social network sites (SNS). There are probably hundreds of social network sites in the world in almost as many languages that are spoken or written. The most popular among these are listed in the table below. As you can see, despite arriving only recently, Facebook has become the most widely used SNS globally, including in Malaysia. Social network researchers D.M. Boyd and N.B. Ellison (2007) put together a comprehensive paper on the Definition, History and Scholarship of Social Network Sites. If time permits, I would urge you to read this full article which is incorporated into your study resources. If you are pressed for time, the following is a short summary of the main salient points of this unit:

1. SNSs continue to grow at a phenomenal rate.
2. From a technological perspective most of them share a lot of common features but they differ in their cultural make up.
3. Some sites cater for a wide audience while others attract people with a particular interest (politics, religion, gender, education).
4. Sites also vary as to the extent they continue to innovate, keeping in tandem with the innovations taking place in the communication technological fields.
5. Most sites seem to have been built on existing social networks while others go beyond those connecting strangers on the basis of shared interest.
6. SNSs are unique in that they enable users "articulate and make visible their networks." This enables them to connect strangers with one another, though this may not have been their primary objective.
7. The SNS are built through the visible profile of users which reflect their friends' profiles, which in turn reflect their friends' profiles, and so on. Simply from one to two, two to four, four to sixteen, and soon, like Facebook, in excess of one million and growing.
8. Different sites have different customs regarding the visibility of profiles. Some are controlled like LinkedIn, while others give the user the choice to either allow free and open access to the public or not; yet others allow profiles to be available by search engines thereby making it available to anyone using a search engine (i.e. the public).
9. Registration and participation in a SNS varies but generally the process starts with a potential user filling forms with the required data which then makes the profile containing descriptors such as age, gender, location and an ‘about me' section. Most of them encourage uploading photographs and even multimedia content. Information extracted from such descriptions allows the system to categorise users into a particular segment of a population or community and bingo! the profile has become part of the web.
10. A major challenge and concern about SNS is their commitment or indeed ability to respect privacy issues; this continues to be a multi dimensional challenge.

What began, perhaps as a fad, has taken on a life of its own and communities are still discovering new and creative ways of using these sites. Commercial, social, professional, political and even criminal groups have come together to use what is a practically free, global (in reach), and immediate (in time) tool. Humanity has developed a capacity to use SNSs in creative ways resulting in an entirely fresh media - social media.