The Dark History of Social Media You Didn't Know 💀💥 Friendster, MySpace... Learning from the Fallen Giants, and the Common Traits of People Who Go Viral on Future Social Media 💡
Hey everyone! Do you know the history of the social media you use every day? 🤔 Actually, the story features and live streaming that you take for granted now are built on a dramatic history of many social media platforms being born and then disappearing! 😱
This time, I'm going to explain the rise and fall of social media in a super easy-to-understand way from our gal perspective! Why did that social media become popular while this one disappeared? What kind of social media is coming next? All these questions should be solved by reading this article! 😉✨
To begin with, what was the start of social media? 🌅【The Prophet Before the Dawn: SixDegrees.com】
It might be before you were all born, but the true original social media was a site created in 1997 called SixDegrees.com! 😳 It was a site that actually put the "six degrees of separation" theory—that you are connected to anyone in the world through six people—into practice, and all the features of current social media (like profiles and friend lists) were born back then! Isn't that too genius? ✨
It was an idea that was too ahead of its time. The internet environment at the time was still dial-up, and there were few friends who were even on the internet, so you couldn't really feel the "connection." It's a pattern where the infrastructure couldn't keep up! Pien 🥺
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Failure Points
It was too ahead of its time! 🚀 (The infrastructure was too weak)
There was no vision for how to make money! 💸
If this site had started around 2003, history might have really changed! 🤔
The first buzz starts here! 💥【The First Giants: Friendster & MySpace】
💫 "Friendster" that appeared like a comet
Appearing in 2002 was Friendster! It evolved the ideas of SixDegrees.com and became a huge buzz all over the world! It was especially god-tier popular in Southeast Asia 🌏
But, it became so popular that the site crashed! 😱 It took 40 seconds or so to load a page, and users were furious! 💢 They even turned down an acquisition offer from Google, and in the end, they self-destructed without being able to solve the technical problems...
🎸 Make your profile sparkle! "MySpace"
While Friendster was lagging, the one that snatched up all its users was MySpace! Does everyone remember? The one where you could customize your profile to be super sparkly with HTML and stuff! lol It had strong music features, and many artists became famous from here 🎤
But, the tragedy began after it was acquired by a major corporation... The site became full of ads, and it was seriously annoying & heavy! At that time, a simple and stylish Facebook appeared, and all the users flowed over there~ 👋
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Failure Points
Friendster: Lack of technical skill! Didn't think about what would happen when it became popular 😇
MySpace: Ignoring user experience! Blinded by short-term money 🤑
What if Friendster had been bought by Google? What if MySpace had valued users more than ads? Facebook might not even exist today! 🤯
Japan's Legend 🇯🇵 [The Walled Garden: mixi]
Our youth, mixi! 💕 The reason mixi was the best was, above all, the "invitation-only" system and the "footprint" feature 🐾
Invitation-only: The peace of mind that only real friends were there was incredible!
Footprints: It was exciting to know who came to visit your page, right? lol That was the spark for communication!
But, in an attempt to increase users, they abolished the invitation-only and footprint features... 😭 That caused the "mixi-ness" to disappear, and users drifted away. Plus, smartphones became widespread at that exact time! 📱 mixi was slow to adapt to smartphones and lost its throne to Facebook and Twitter.
They are super successful now with the game "Monster Strike," so maybe it's all well that ends well, but mixi as a social network was truly legendary! ✨
In the end, you shouldn't try to please everyone at the cost of your own strengths. Being late to adapt to the changing times (PC to smartphone) was also painful! 😣
The Unshakable Absolute King 👑 [The Impregnable Fortress: Facebook]
So, why did Facebook become the strongest? 🤔 The reason is super simple!
Peace of mind from real names: Unlike the flashy fake names on MySpace, valuing real connections was a hit!
Clean UI: It wasn't cluttered, and it was genuinely easy to see! ✨
Invention of the News Feed: This was revolutionary! Updates from friends would just flow in, so you'd watch it endlessly lol. It was god-tier not having to jump to each friend's page like on MySpace!
Silencing dangerous rivals with money: Instagram, WhatsApp, they bought up every service that started to grow! lol Their strategy is ruthless! 💰
Facebook's success is built on learning from all the failures of past social media. They are seriously too smart! Being smart is justice! 💪
The Real-Time Revolutionary ⚡ [The World's Town Square: Twitter (X)]
Twitter's appeal is, above all, the constraint of the "140-character" limit! lol Because of this restriction, it became the place where you could find out what's happening in real-time faster than anywhere else. Did you know that things like hashtags (#) and retweets were actually started by users on their own?😳 Twitter listened to its users and turned those into official features, which is why it became a platform loved by everyone!💖
Social media grown by its users, that is the essence of Twitter. It's changed a lot now that it's X, but this real-time nature is still the best!🔥
The Genius's Flash of Inspiration and the Arrival of the God Algorithm🕺【6-second video Vine vs. the Ultimate TikTok】
🎆The genius "Vine" that scattered in 6 seconds
Vine, which took the world by storm with its looping 6-second videos! There were so many seriously funny creators, and it birthed a whole new culture!Vine!
But Vine made a fatal mistake... It was not creating a system to pay creators! Top creators couldn't make money on Vine, so they all left for YouTube or other platforms. Meanwhile, Instagram started its video feature, and Vine became obsolete in the blink of an eye...😭
🏆The God of Algorithms "TikTok"
Seeing Vine's failure, the one that appeared with a perfect system was TikTok! The craziness of TikTok is, above all, the "recommendation algorithm"!
Instead of a social graph (posts from friends), an entertainment graph (videos you want to see)!
This is a total revolution! It means that even if you have few friends or zero followers, if your video is interesting, you have the potential to go viral in an instant!🚀 Plus, with easy-to-use editing tools and trending music all built into the app, anyone can become a creator! Of course, the system for creators to earn money is also perfect!👍
Vine's tragedy was not valuing its most important asset: the creators. TikTok understood that perfectly!
🔮Future Predictions and Analytical Insights🔮
So, what will happen to social media from here on out? Here is my analysis!👇
Into an era truly dominated by AI: "Recommendation-based" platforms like TikTok will become the mainstream, and AI will perfectly serve up "what you want to see." For better or worse, you might need to be careful about the "filter bubble" where you can't get out of your own range of interests!🤔
A return to the roots of community: Instead of open places like Facebook, the value of more closed and trustworthy spaces will rise! I think there will be a demand for places like the old mixi, where you can have real conversations with just your close friends. The growth of things like Discord is proof of that!
The rise of decentralized social media: Just like what Elon Musk did with X, it's too risky to have everything change at the whim of the top management! Because of that, "decentralized social media" like "Bluesky" that don't have a specific administrator are slowly gaining traction. It's still niche, but there's a chance it could become the standard for the next era!🚀
In the end, no matter how much technology evolves, the human desire to 'connect,' 'be recognized,' and 'have fun' never changes, right? 💖
🚀Summary🚀
It got a bit long, but here are the rules for being a 'winner' that we can learn from the history of SNS!
✅ Is the user experience divine?: Slow sites and annoying ads are out of the question!
✅ Are you riding the waves of change?: If you miss a big wave like the shift from PC to mobile, you're dead!
✅ Do you value creators?: If the interesting people leave, that SNS is finished! A system where they can actually earn money is super important!
✅ Does it satisfy fundamental human desires?: 'Connection,' 'information,' 'entertainment'—what does that SNS provide for you?
The history of SNS is seriously the history of our own lives! I think new SNS platforms will keep popping up, but if you know these rules, you might just be able to predict what's going to go viral next!? 🤩
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