A Brief History of Social Networking.

Foreword

Unlike online Instant Messaging or Chat communities (such as AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, or ICQ), social networks (or "virtual communities") can be defined as groupings of people with similar intents, if not interests. Their purpose is relatively simple, to use the internet to allow people to interact with people they most likely would have little or no chance of coming into contact with otherwise, whether due to social cliches, geographical boundaries, or other obstacles. Consider it a veritable successor to or perhaps even "evolution" from having a "pen pal".

The approach of each individual website differs, depending on which type of person or "crowd" that website is trying to attract... And as with just about any type of business, there are often just as many if not more of that type of business that will fail, than succeed. Keeping that in mind, this is by no means intended to be a complete or encompassing report or listing as to every last social networking site ever to grace our beloved internet. That said, let us get to it.

Origins

One of the first notable websites to introduce online social networking would be HoTMaiL Personals, created sometime in 1995 (sometimes shortly following the induction of Hotmail, but before it's commercialization with Microsoft) which allowed users to link personals ads to their already existing Hotmail accounts. The popularity of the website lasted until approximately 2000, and since then the website has undergone several make-overs to the point that any sort of social networking is almost hidden within the mass of Hotmail, MSN and other Passport.net live links (and/or link rot).

An even more notable entry into the ring of social networking sites is the still-running Classmates.com, again, created sometime in 1995. While HoTMaiL Personals took an approach derived from the concept of personal ads (such as those in newspapers), Classmates.com focus of operation was to allow members to find, connect (or re-connect) with, and keep in touch with friends met throughout the various stages of their lives, via school - be it anywhere from Elementary to Graduate (extended to include places of employment and the various Armed Forces). This flexible form of exclusivity allowed for Classmates.com to attract a certain, albeit wide-based, type of user - something that would become more and more common in succeeding social networking sites.

Perhaps motivated by the success of the two aforementioned websites, HoTMaiL Personals and Classmates.com were quickly followed up an almost countless number of successors - from imitators (SixDegrees, Yahoo! Personals/Geocities) to abstract takes on the original form (Live/DeadJournal, Xanga) - which took turn to focus on literature, music, movies and their review(s/ing), as well as online journals (or "weblogging"/"blogs"). For the most part, all of the aforementioned sites have carried on in some form or another (with the exception of SixDegrees.com, which was sold to YouthStream Media Networks in 2000 for $120M USD) - but none would become a true social "meme" until the introduction of Friendster in 2002.

Friendster

Friendster targeted itself at the group which made it's precursors most popular - young adults from North America (most particularly the United States), Europe (most particularly England/United Kingdom) and Asia (most particularly Japan) aged about 18 to 29. Establishing a format that many succeeding sites would use as a template, each user created an online profile (or "identity") by filling out a questionnaire profile and uploading a user picture, then defining a gallery of friends - either by interacting with friends already using the site, seeking out people who use the site, or inviting friends to join. The service would then integrate these galleries, using the so-called "small world phenomenon" to allow people to always interact with a friend-of-a-friend(multiplied to whatever exponential value necessary), and not simply a random or unknown person (such as is often associated with spam eMails or Instant Messaging/Chat programs).

Friendster's approach, blending the successful aspects of its precurors and leaving out the less popular features, would set the standard for almost every subsequent social networking site that would be met with any sort of popularity. Friendster's focused targeting (aiming the site not only at the youth market, but targeting single youths) would also be heavily borrowed by following sites, most notably - MySpace.com.

MySpace.com

Currently the most popular website in the United States (accounting for approximately 4.7% of all website visits originating from the US)*, MySpace.com was born of the integration of "blogging" (as preceeded by LiveJournal or Xanga), user profiles (as preceeded by Friendster), grouping (mostly provided by the seperation of websites - i.e., Friendster for dating, SixDegrees.com for "underground" socializing, or even Ryze for business networking), and an internal eMail system (perhaps borrowing from the original concept of Hotmail Personals).

MySpace has gradually gained more popularity than similar sites (such as Friendster, LiveJournal, or Classmates.com) to get the highest hit count of all English-language social networking websites. It has become an increasingly influential part of contemporary pop culture, especially in the Anglosphere. MySpace currently has just over 95 million members (although the number of "unique" members is almost impossible to determine) and gets about 500,000 new members each week.

... But MySpace was not always the social networking giant it stands as today, nor was it always poised to become such. Before the creation of the current social networking website, the MySpace.com domain name was registered in 1998 to an online storage and file sharing firm. Registration was free and users were able to obtain a small disk quota which would gradually increase if they referred new members to the site. Due to slow service and a lack of revenue, the original site shut down sometime in late 2001.

The current MySpace service was founded in July 2003 by current president Tom Anderson (the popular "first friend" of each profile created), current CEO Chris DeWolfe, and a small team of programmers. It was partially owned by Intermix Media, which was bought in July 2005 for $580 million by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (the parent company of Fox Broadcasting and other media enterprises).

Borrowing from the now-popular (or even "standard", as will be addressed later) Friendster format, each profile contains several "blurbs" including "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet", as well as sections detailing the users' musical, cinematic, literary, and other tastes. A standard questionnaire is used to determine details such as marital status, physical appearance, and income. Taking the Friendster format a bit further, each profile also allows for the user to post "blog" entries, further allowing MySpace to be a more "all-encompassing" type of social site.

Although MySpace is more oriented toward the youth market, there are many people who are making careers out of promotion on MySpace. From bands, to celebrities, to exotic car dealers, many people have found MySpace to be an invaluable tool for advocating their goods and services. Like Friendster before it, MySpace has now spawned many imitators (and thus, competitors) - such as Facebook and TagWorld, but the most notable product of the popularity of MySpace has to be the Friendster patent approval.

Friendster Patent

On June 27th, 2006 - Friendster received a patent (US Patent no. 7.069.308) that covers online social networks, one the company had applied for long before its decline and recent recapitalization.

The patent is extremely general in its terms, covering the basic steps involved in joining a social network: entering a personal description and relationships to other users, mapping relationships and degrees of separation, and connecting to others through these friends. In such, seemingly covering the activities of many other social networking sites, especially those such as LinkedIn, that allow people to connect within a certain number of "degrees of seperation", which would leave the proverbial door open for MySpace's "Top Friends" to become a talking point of the patent's details.

In its simplest terms, the patent is referred to as a “system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks." And although the Friendster patent could be challenged in either the patent system or the courts, opponents would face an uphill battle. “Once the patent is issued there is a presumption of validity that follows with it,” said attorney Bill Heinze in representation of Friendster.

The patent is more of a moral victory for the now-struggling Friendster, as even though it still counts 9-to-10 million users, the company has been consistently losing momentum in the global networking market, mostly to MySpace.com. Many users and former users cite heavy "lag" or "loading" times, as well as a lack of the diversity offered by MySpace as reasons for their leaving the site.

This sort of situation treads the fine line between property and intellectual property, which warrants a full-length discussion of its own. Another situation provided by the awarding of the Friendster patent, is the possible monopolization of the social networking class of websites - further pushing the ongoing internet properties debate into the political forum.

Failed Sites

As stated before, for each popularized website, there are quite literally tens of thousands that fail just as miserably as those which succeed (only in opposing terms), and while chronicling the popular websites may be a task of its own - finding all the ones that either haven't or haven't yet made it through the glass ceiling is ten times the effort. Here is a short overview of some of those that haven't:

43 Things
Adult FriendFinder
aSmallWorld
BlackPlanet.com
Babbello
The Black Stripe
Bebo
Bolt
Campusbug
Care2
Cyworld
Crostel
Connecct.ee
DowneLink
DoYouDo
Draugien.lv
Ecademy
eCrush
eSpin
Faceparty
Flickr
Frustuckstreff
Gaia Online
GayRomeo
Gayday
GolfBuzz
GreatestJournal
Grono.net
Hey! ASL?!
Hi5
Hyves
IMVU
Insider Pages
IRC-Galleria
iWiW
JDate
Joga Bonito
LinkedIn
LunarStorm
Miaplaza
MiGente.com
Mixi
MOBANGO
MSN Space
Multiply
Music Forte
MyGamma
MyNetSpot.org
myYearbook
Neurona
Nexopia
OkCupid
openBC
orkut
Passado
Piczo
ProfileHeaven
Rediff Connexions
Reunion.com
Ryze
Sconex
Spark Networks
Studybreakers
Sulekha
Tagged
TakingITGlobal
The Student Center
Thingbox
Tickle
Tribe
WAYN
Wireless World Forum
Xuqa
Yahoo! 360/Yahoo! Personals

... And while it can be argued that many of these sites are popular in a specific region or among a particular group of people - the overall popularity does not match that of the previously referenced sites.

Afterword/Commentary

... Glorifying MySpace, TagWorld, FaceBook, FaceParty - or any other "social networking" site for doing the same job as eMailing does, only with fancier interfaces and graphics - is like saying that not paying as much for water purification to the State, and in turn paying that money to say - Coca Cola or Pepsi, to buy water at a supermarket, is "better" or "Worse". Really, it's all the same.

* - Note that the site's traffic volume is based on incredibly intense usage by a more limited number of visitors. At least five English language sites have a higher "reach" measurement; that is, they are visited by more unique people each day.

The correction of any errors, whether in citation, punctuation, spelling or otherwise - as well as the addition of and new information, provided ample source information, is both appreciated and encouraged.

Divine Nonsense, the

You know, I'm pretty sure if my father could have been responsible for scripting November 4th, 2008, he would have not only had John McCain winning the Presidency - but also had every last person in the State of California vote 'Yes' on Proposition 8.

Yes, my father is a bit afraid of those gays. A homophobe in the truest sense of the word, he knows that their bedroom activities do not include him and would not affect him even if he didn't know about it - but he still fears that if we grant homosexuals the same rights as everyone who 'plays by the rules', he will somehow end up with a dick in the butt.

Is it crazy? Yes. Is it archaic? Yes. Is it funny? Sort of.

It can only be viewed as funny if you think about his fear, and not about his mindset. He truly believes that homosexuals are second-class citizens (of this or any country), which means that he believes that there are second-class citizens. Which is wrong on all accounts, but especially so in a country which pretty openly stresses that it views all men to have been created equal. "Liberty and justice for all" is a great catch phrase for people like my father, because it perpetuates their own freedoms while granting them the liberties of restricting others.

The idea that marriage is anything other than A.) a commitment which requires a ceremony involving friends or family witnessing two people stating what was usually already fairly obvious to everyone else, or B.) a legal phrase that we assign to couples who don't mind the alteration in their taxes or people knowing that they are attempting to stay with one person for the rest of their lives - is ludicrous.

I've heard the argument that there are people who would use same-sex marriages with 'malicious' intents such as guaranteeing themselves insurance coverage from their employers, or ensuring that any children that they have or may have will be the sole executors of their estate, thanks to a friend who is willing to pose as a lover to help meet those ends. Yes, because heterosexual coupling has never produced anything that could even be construed as illegal.

The fact of the matter is that prohibiting gays, lesbians and/or transgendered people their right to marry whoever they see fit is an action that serves only to show the cowardice of those who introduce such a bill, and the weak-mindedness of those who would vote for it.

Actually, I take that back - it also violates one of the founding principles of the United States: separation of church and state. Of course many of the arguments for the establishment of that separation are founded on the idea that a government should have a complete lack of authority in the realm of individual conscience. But keeping with the theme of checks and balances that was also established in this country, shouldn't the ideals of a religion have no authority in the realm of social contracts? Should freedom of religion take priority over freedom of expression - such as the expression of love between two people, regardless of their gender?

I distinctly recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, stating that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

... And if we look to the other side of the argument, the non-secular view of the world offers many contradictory points in reference to being with a person of your own gender. Apparently being a homosexual will in turn banish that person to a firey pit of torment for all of eternity not spent on Earth, unless the mass hatred poured out towards homosexuals is to be counted. And speaking of that hatred, don't the same books that state that homosexuality is 'wrong' also speak of not judging other people, as God will do so with infinite wisdom?

This argument could go on forever, and I'm only discussing it with myself at the moment. So to conclude I will say this - I would rather burn in Hell if it allows two people who truly love each other, be they two men or two women, to have the right and the confidence to state and express that love how, when and wherever they see fit.

Snoopy D-O-Double-Gizzle.

Rating a hip-hop personality is often quite simply a matter of charting the level of success (usually in sales) they managed, and how long they were able to maintain that success. Which makes Calvin Broadus an interesting character in the grand story of hip-hop, in that depending on the level on which he is enjoyed by a particular person, the argument could be made for his either being the most over or under-rated lyricist of all-time.

From one perspective, he has had a very large hand in bringing the current state of rap to the forefront - that of the bling-coated, sex-obsessed 'hoodlums'. Then again, he has only one album that is considered to have much top-to-bottom weight (coincidentally, his solo debut Doggystyle) - despite being aligned with many of the top producers and organizations while they sat at arguably the peak of their creativity and influence (Dr. Dre/Death Row, Master P/No Limit, Pharrell Williams/the new 'free' market).

Today we examine the career of Snoop Dogg through his albums, in an attempt to ascertain how he has maintained his success thus far into his sixteen year career.

The Chronic
[Dr. Dre album - Snoop is featured on twelve of its sixteen tracks]
Sales: 3.00 x Platinum (US)

Widely considered to be perhaps the most influential album on the modern hip-hop sound and culture, Snoop Dogg's heavy involvement in The Chronic earned him the type of success and credibility that many artists have to work years to even approach. But it was not as though this was solely the doing of his being supported by Dr. Dre - Snoop's flow, particularly on the instant-classic "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang", was both respected and met with critical acclaim for its balance between complex and effortless -- perhaps not a product of, but most assuredly an inspiration to the now heavily prevalent freestyle delivery. And when paired with tracks like "Fuck wit Dre Day", it served to establish his now well-known blunted-out, "don't hafta nothin'"-type persona.

Doggystyle
[executive production - Dr. Dre]
Sales: 4.00 x Platinum (US)

Even upon its release, the sound and feel of Doggystyle was immediately compared to that of The Chronic - which can easily be attributed to both Dr. Dre's production of the album, and the atmosphere held as standard at the Death Row Records studios - as described by Bruce Williams:

"Dre’s going to be the first one in the studio and the last one to leave. He’ll start messing with a beat. As the beat starts pumping, the guys start filtering in. Everybody will get their little drink and smoke in. Soon enough the beat starts to make a presence. You’ll look around the room and every cat that was a rapper – from Kurupt to Daz to Snoop – will grab a pen. They would start writing while Dre is making a beat so by the time he’s finished with the beat, they are ready to hit the booth and start spittin'. To see those young cats – they were all hungry and wanted to make something dope. The atmosphere that was there, you couldn’t be wack (...)"

Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told [executive production - Master P]
Sales: 2.00 x Platinum (US)

Snoop's first release outside of both Death Row Records and the all West Coast/G-Funk sound that was their signature at the time. Although his next album No Limit Top Dogg would be more appreciated, Da Game would outsell it nearly two-to-one, and would deliver a firm message in the successful mixing of Nu-South production with West Coast lyricism - that collaboration was something to be sought, not shunned, an especially important message delivered just about a year and a half removed from the Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. killings. A message that not only rings true today, but dictates the genre - while hot producers serving as freelance hitmakers to whoever pays, lyricists still show pride in their geographic roots - but without the foolish beefs that cost the genre so much in talent and poor media exposure in the late 1990s.

Tha Last Meal
[released by Doggystyle as supported by No Limit & Priority Records; produced by Dr. Dre]
Sales: 1.00 x Platinum (US)

After a brief return to his G-Funk roots with No Limit Top Dogg in 1999, Snoop started off the new millennium with his first release on his own vanity label, Doggystyle. And with the new label came a new approach that lasts to this day, and is almost universally embraced within the upper echelon of hip-hop - that of the super-pimp-a-listic playa spectacular. It was almost as though Snoop had paid his dues, and could now use his name as a ticket to easy success - using beats from only the hottest producers, and being backed up by an all-star cast of guests (such as Nate Dogg on "Lay Low", Pharrell Williams on "Beautiful" and "Drop It Like It's Hot"). Much like Jay-Z, Snoop learned that he could be honest and rap about his riches and luxurious lifestyle - and that people would still buy his records, so long as the track was club-worthy.

Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle
Sales: ; Awards: 2001 Adult Video News Awards for Best Music, Adult Video News Awards for Top Selling Tape of 2001

In his first move that directly set trends, without being apart of a larger product - Snoop 'hosted' his own hardcore pornographic music video, "Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle". He was quickly followed by artists such as Mystikal, Yukmouth and Too Short - which all assisted in establishing a base of operations for Hustler's new clothing line and record label. Incidentally, while the scenes were filmed at Snoop's house - he is never involved directly with any of them - and most adult film critics have gone so far as to proclaim that the the video bears false advertising (in regard to the 'hardcore' level of the scenes). This video would later be followed up by a Snoop Dogg-endorsed Girls Gone Wild installment, but neither have seemed to assist or harm Snoop's career in any significant way.

-------------

So what is the lesson learned by looking at Snoop Dogg's career? What is his grand secret of success? In a word - consistency. Snoop has never truly reinvented himself as one brand or another of emcee - and while his status elevated, so did the references in his rhymes. His youthful pursuit of money gave way to the braggadocio-styled lyrics of other successful capitalists such as Jay-Z and Lil Wayne. But perhaps most importantly, Snoop has always had a sense of humour towards all of his affairs. Whether through cameos in Half Baked or his plain honesty in interviews (with a follow-up to that available here), Snoop has never hid any aspect of his life from the public - and seems to have been handsomely rewarded for that.

As far as influence goes, outside of his -izzy/-izzle suffixation, it can be argued that most influence in music is done on the other side of the booth - via production, and that Snoop's major contribution in that court has been in his willingness to work with whomever will gain him the surest path to success - a model that is utilized by nearly every platinum-selling artist in any genre nowadays. But regardless of how large the mark may be, it cannot be argued that Snoop Dogg's is a brand that will remain for quite some time, perhaps even after he has hung up the pimp hat and cane for the last time.