The Origins of Social Networking
The first social network to be launched was SixDegrees.com in 1997. SixDegrees was the first site to allow users to list friends they may have in their own network. Although SixDegrees had millions of users, it ended up closing in 2000. It was unable to transform itself into a viable business. Between 1997 and 2001 there were many other systems that supported public profiles, and allowed people to show their list of friends. These included BlackPlanet, and MiGente however many of these were used as dating profiles.
It was not until the introduction of Ryze.com in 2001 that Social Networking Sites began to take off. Ryze was introduced by its founder to the San Francisco business community to people who then went on to invest in further Social Networking sites. According to Boyd and Ellison in their article entitled Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship the people involved in Ryze, Tribe.net, LinkedIn and Friendster were interlinked personally and professionally. However in the end they all went their separate ways.
Friendster which was introduced in 2002 has been dubbed “one of the biggest disappointments in Internet history” Max Chafkin
Friendster was a social network that was designed to compete with dating sites like Match.com. Instead of the user finding romance with a complete stranger on the internet with similar interests, Friendster approached the idea that friends of friends would make better dating partners than strangers. However Friendsters demise was its popularity. When the popularity increased the web site began to encounter technical and social problems. The server and database that Friendster worked from were unable to cope with the increase in traffic. Also many new users who had heard about Friendster from the media exposed problems with the social contexts. Users ended up having their bosses and classmates along with close friends. The exponential growth of profiles which had a false image or profile coined the term “Fakester”. A combination of lack of trust for the site, technical problems and fakesters, led to Friendsters rapid decline. However as it lost people in the West, it became more popular in places like Asia.
Myspace was introduced in 2003 to compete with the ailing Friendster. Its founders wanted to attract ex-Friendster users. After a rumour emerged that Friendster would start charging a fee for the service, Myspace was able to capitalize. Many rock bands who had been taken off Friendster for not complying with regulations now found a home in Myspace.com. Rock bands wanted to be able to socially network with their fans, and their fans wanted to be able to socially network with their favourite bands. MySpace was not initially set up to be used for music, but when it realised this link, the founders asked some bands what MySpace could do for them. This flexibility allowed fans to get in touch with their favourite bands, and an increase of teenage traffic saw user numbers soaring.
