The word combination “social network” was born in 1954 and had nothing in common with the Internet.
The person who invented the term was James Barnes: “social network” is a social structure, which includes individuals or groups linked with the same type of activity, common interests, friendship or relationships. So it’s a kind of structure of familiar people, divided into different groups, where each person makes a group of classmates, colleagues or friends around them.
Year after year this scientific concept progressed and gained much popularity. The first growth was observed in North America and Eastern Europe. During the process of development of the society we reached the age of information and communication, where social networks gained a lot of popularity.
The first computer social network appeared in 1971 and was used by the military on the ARPA Net network.
1988 was a year of IRC (Internet Relay Chat), which provided the opportunity to talk online.
The main event was an internet appearance, which Tim Berners-Lee made public in 1991.
There was a network called slassmates.com launched in 1995. It was very popular and became a year of the beginning of the process of developing social networks on the Internet. But still classmates.com is
one of the most popular social networks with almost 50 million users.
Facebook.com appeared in 2004 and quickly became very popular around the world. The concept of this network was a little different but it revolutionized the world of social networks. It has more than 700 million users now.
In 2008, the discount service called Groupon appeared, which is not a real social network, but uses similar principles to social networks and invites people to become part of the Groupon community.
Classification
Now there are many different types of social networks, so let’s take a look at some of them.
By type:
- Clasmates.com (personal communication)
- LinkedIn (business communication)
- Youtube video)
- Last.fm (audio)
- Flickr (images)
- Groupon (shopping)
- Reddit (news)
- Forsquare (geolocation)
- Tumblr (blogging)
- Answers.com (answers and questions)
- Delicious (markers)
- Second Life (virtual worlds)
- Slashdot (themed)
By availability:
- Facebook (open)
- PlayboyU (private)
- VK (mixed)
By region:
- Hi5 (worldwide)
- Qzone (country)
- InterNations (worldwide)
The first classification is the most interesting and has a lot of different content for different groups of people and different goals. So each person has the opportunity to find a niche and find almost all existing topics. The most popular networks continue to grow.
The second type of classification shows availability. There are three different types of current classification: open, private and mixed. Each network was created for a purpose and some of the networks were not made public. And just because of their business model, these networks are closed. But most of the networks are still public and can be used by anyone from any social group. That is not liked by many people because of its advertising of information. Mixed-type social networks are generally not as popular as public networks, because users simply don’t like to cross barriers and prefer to refrain from such networks.
And the last type shows us the largest networks in the world that made a kind of union between people from different countries regardless of their culture and skin color. Its clones later appeared in different countries and regions. And now we can see many different types of networks that are tied to a city, region, or even a corporation and political organization. That means that no matter who you are and where you are, you can always become a part of any kind of virtual community.
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