by Jefe Nubarron

Created on: August 27, 2010

Social media is designed to facilitate social interaction, using accessible and highly scalable publishing technologies.  As deployed today, social media is still primarily web-based.  To understand why we have social media now it helps to understand the history of the Internet.  The Internet has only been a public phenomenon for about 15 years, and the web even less.  Widespread use of the world wide web only took off after the turn of the millennium.  You may hear the expression Internet 2.0.  This refers to current, second generation social networking technologies, engaged in push and pull with constituents.

For one thing, technology to allow social media has only recently advanced to the point possible to support it on a wide scale.  A site like Facebook, now with 500 million users, requires a massive technological infrastructure.  Facebook and Twitter are built using very modern software tools, like cloud computing.  We have social media now because the technology to support it has only recently become sufficiently capable and affordable at scale.

The deployment of mobile technology has also facilitated the growth of social media.  The growth of mobile phone usage mirrors the growth of the Internet.  A smartphone is an internet-enabled device, in effect a tiny computer in your hand, with potentially constant connectivity.  The social networking tool Twitter actually got it start with SMS text messaging.  More modern, location-based social media tools like Foursquare and Gowalla require the deployment and usage of GPS-enabled mobile devices.  Without rapid advances in the development and deployment of mobile devices, we would not have social media now.

People themselves have required retooling.  As a species, humanity is remarkably adaptable.  We have developed technology to supplement our biology, to a far greater degree than any other species on the planet.  The actual pace of technology adoption tends to move far slower than the blistering pace of technology development itself.  Think back ten years, when older generations were struggling with simple tools like email and file downloads.  Today, most teenagers and adults in the U.S. are on Facebook.  It took time for folks to learn the rules of online etiquette and to acquire comfort with online discourse.  It's one thing to write an email to auntie.  People need to adapt their habits to share stories and photographs, if not actual movements, with circles of friends scattered across the globe.  We have social media now because people have adapted their habits to support it.

When Rupert Murdoch's News Corp purchased MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, it was the premiere social media platform in the world.  It's likely that the tipping point for social media was the moment MySpace was acquired.  Since 2005, social network growth has been phenomenal.  Facebook.com was only launched in 2005, and it has since grown to over half-a-billion members.  Recent advances in technology and changes in modern human habits have fostered an environment conducive to social media.

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