Arguably the earliest examples of social media proper were personal Instant Messaging.
Services such as ICQ (launched in November 1996), AOL Instant Mesenger or AIM (1997), Yahoo! Messenger (1998) and MSN Messenger (1999).
These were based on a simple
streamlined concept of building a personal social network for real-time germany phone number data conversations with individuals and small
groups, and achieved an international user base in the hundreds of millions in their prime. In general it was necessary to know someone’s personal identification (typically either an email address.
Or a screen name, sometimes known as a NIC) from other.
Sources before adding that person as a contact using these services.
For much of their lifetimes, these dedicated personal instant messaging services coexisted.
On the Internet with networks run by some of the same parent companies.
That allowed users to set up and administer their own public or private groups centred around.
Message boards but with varying degrees of other functionality. One of the most sophisticated and flexible platforms was MSN Communities (1999) – renamed MSN Groups two years after its launch.
But ultimately axed in 2009. This was followed by the simpler Yahoo Groups, each group offering just a single message board. Neither of these services included instant messaging, which was not felt to be necessary when the service providers already offered it through their dedicated applications.
A third prong to the segmented
social media scene of the earlier Internet years was the stand-alone chat room, essentially involving a rolling real-time print-out of comments typed by all users presently signed in to the room. This was an enormously popular facility in the 1990s and early 2000s, with all the major providers of instant messaging services also offering their own networks of chat rooms themed around a bewildering array of different topics. Friendships formed in chat rooms fed across into instant messaging plan your business strategy from integrity networks. However, the chat room genre eventually fell foul of enhanced sensibilities around the dangers, particularly for children, of mingling with strangers in such an environment, as well as computer security concerns arising from connections via chat-hosting clients; and MSN was the first major provider to axe its thitherto highly successful free chat service in the Autumn of 2003, initially introducing a paid model thailand data that achieved a very poor uptake with its user base, and then swiftly pulling the plug on its service altogether.
While the precursors to today’s social media networks were predominantly used for leisure, some savvy marketers saw good opportunities to make use of chat rooms and the opportunities afforded by those forum groups that permitted it to promote their products and services using them.