The Evolution of Social Networking is something that we’ve all benefited from in one way or another. While we might not all be crazy about social media like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, it’s clear that in many ways it’s made our lives a little easier (and more stressful). As we move into the future, social media will have to adapt to our increasingly digital lives, just like we adapted to it. So, how has social networking evolved in the past, and how will it continue to evolve?

A History of Social Media

In many ways, the birth of social media occurred in 1971, when the first-ever email was sent. Still, that’s not exactly what we think of when we discuss social media today. For many of us, our first venture into the world of social media began with the late 90s/early 2000s messenger apps like AOL or MSN Messenger.

Then, on 1 August 2003, the very first social media platform was launched — Myspace. Myspace was the first social networking site to offer an interactive and user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, and social groups. It was the largest social network from 2005 to 2008, after which it was taken over by Facebook.

Facebook — founded in 2003 as FaceMash by Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskowitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin — this social media site remains the biggest in the world, with more than 2.23 billion MAUs (monthly active users). Facebook has become an ecosystem all of its own. Dominating internet advertising, with social marketers benefiting immensely from the targeted advertising offered on the platform. Facebook also has its own marketplace, where users can buy and sell goods and services all from the comfort of the platform.

Twitter was founded in 2006 and brought an emphasis on microblogging. Here, users’ tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters, but this was doubled on 7 November 2017, to 280 characters. Twitter has 321 million MAUs and is used for many as a news source.

Now onto Facebook-owned platforms. Facebook has its fingers in so many different pies, currently owning Instagram, WhatsApp, and 74 other smaller companies (at the time of writing).

The teenage years of the 21st century proved meteoric for social media, with more and more young people coming online. Kids and teenagers took to social media video sharing platforms like Vine and TikTok, with Vine having 100 million MAUs at one point (it has since shut down), and TikTok with 500 million MAUs at the time of writing. That makes TikTok the 9th largest social media platform in the world.

The Future

So, what about the future of social media? Stan World is a pretty good example of where we can expect social media to be in the future, they’re just doing it early! Stan World is a nextgen, VR, AI and Blockchain-based social media platform where users can engage with their favorite creators in VR. It’s a place where like-minded people can connect and support each other, free of hostility and with compensation. That’s right! Users can be compensated for their engagement within the platform, so your time is your time — nobody else’s. Stan World is a fantastic sign of where we’re going, and it’s only the beginning of the evolution of social networking — there’s still so much more to be done!