What was the first Social Network?

Human beings are made to socialize, so social media they are certainly nothing new in recent years. But if today we have Instagram, Facebook , TikTok, Snapchat and many other platforms with which to connect with other people, known or not, what was the first of all? Let’s find out below what was the first social network

What are social networks and when were they born?

“Social network” is how social networks are defined in English, but this word is not complete, it is actually “social networking” that is, social network service. It refers exclusively to the internet and therefore to web 2.0 and later, and consists of a service that can be used from a computer, and therefore from a browser, or through an app, from a smartphone or tablet. Social networks They were born in the late 90’s. but it was not until the 2000s that they began to spread like wildfire.

The first social network: SixDegrees

The first social network was called SixDegrees, inspired by the theory that each person in the world is connected to another through six degrees of separation that is, six acquaintances .

Born in New York in 1997, it allowed you to create profiles and make a list of friends. SixDegrees’ features were inspired by other dating sites and communities, such as the famous (at the time) classmates.com, which allowed you to get in touch with old schoolmates. Nevertheless, SixDegrees was closed in 2000 because it was not profitable. Proof of the importance of having an idea but also knowing how to develop it

There were several attempts before reaching social networks as we know them now. Before Facebook and after SixDegrees there were already several similar sites, such as Myspace or Friendster. Before these, the first online chat usable for a large audience already existed in the United States in the 80s. And before, in 1978, the bulletin boards arrived ( Bulletin Board System ) that did not cease to be electronic bulletin boards, made up of a computer capable of connecting several users through the telephone line and thus allowing them to exchange messages, read the news, chat, play games. games. For this reason, many people consider these boards as a kind of “seed” of social networks.

Cicero King of social networks in ancient Rome

But there are those who go back even further in time: according to Tom Standage, author of the book Cicero’s Tweets, the origin of social networks would be in ancient Rome, in the year 51 a. c.when Cicero he became proconsul of Cilicia (present-day Turkey).

In order to be updated on what was happening in Rome, exploited the network used by the Roman elite to exchange information. The news circulated on papyrus scrolls : Letters and documents were copied, shared, commented on and posted on the city walls. As in the “wall” of Facebook!

Today’s social networks

After the creation of Facebook, which took place in 2004there are many social networks that have been inspired by the model of Mark Zuckerberg, evolving and modifying it. Among the most popular today are certainly Instagram, owned by Zuckerberg himself, that allows you to follow people around the world who create visual content, such as photos and videos; very similar is Snapchat, born 2011, the first to introduce the concept of ‘stories’, that is, content that disappears in twenty-four hours, as well as the use of filters.

In 2016, in China, the social network most loved by generation Z was born: TikTok. Twitter is also still very popular, despite the fact that its audience is more adult and is aimed above all at the world of news.

pinterest on the other hand, is the social network for those who want to be inspired by the tastes of others, VKontakte is the “Russian” Facebookthat is, used mainly in Russia and in the countries of the former Soviet Union, while Telegram is gaining more and more space today because it allows not only to spread news without censorship, but also to delete content permanently without the possibility of recovering it. That is why it is widely used among dissidents around the world and in war zones.