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After experimenting with sending electrical impulses by wire for over a decade, Samuel Morse had Congress string electricity-conducting wires from Washington to Baltimore. Using dots and dashes in what came to be called "Morse code," he sent his first telegraph message, demonstrating that real-time communication could be done over long distances (Vivian 26).
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The 1st super computers are invented (Hendricks).
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As an avenue for social interaction long before the Internet became mainstream, CompuServe, a business-oriented mainframe computer communication solution, began (Digital Trends Staff)
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Ward Christensen and Randy Suess invented the Computerized Bulletin Board System system to inform friends about meetings, make announcements, and share info (Glenn).
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By the 1980s, home computers were becoming increasingly common and social media was becoming more complex (Hendricks).
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CompuServe expanded into the public domain (Digital Trends Staff).
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Internet relay chats were first used, and remained popular into the 1990’s (Hendricks).
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Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web (Andrews).
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More than 1,500 Web servers are online, and people begin referring to the Internet as the Information Superhighway (Tirado).
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Classmates.com was created, and was popular almost immediately (Digital Trends Staff).
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AOL Instant Messenger lets users chat (Tirado).
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Sixdegrees.com was one of the first to allow users to create profiles, invite friends, organize groups, and surf other profiles. Unfortunately, founders' encouragement for users to recruit friends to join became a bit too pushy, and the site slowly dissolved just after 2000 (Digital Trends Staff).
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The first free online blogging service is introduced (Vivian 67)
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Around 100 million people have access to the internet, and it's now quite common for people to be engaged socially online, although it was looked at as an odd hobby at best. At any rate, more and more people started to use chat rooms for making friends, dating and discussing various topics (Hale).
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Friendster coined the term “Circle of Friends,” and promoted the idea that rich online communities may exist only between people who have common bonds (Digital Trends Staff)
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LinkedIn is launched (Vivian 67).
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Within a year after its launch, Friendster boasted more than three million registered users (Digital Trends Staff).
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Myspace was founded by employees of eUniverse, an internet marketing company. Chris DeWolfe, Brad Greenspan, Tom Anderson and Josh Berman developed the project after realizing Friendster's huge potential. Ten days later, the first version of MySpace was ready for launch ("The History of Myspace.com").
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Facebook is launched, but as a Harvard-only platform. It remains campus-oriented for two full years (Digital Trends Staff).
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Digg was founded as a social news website where people shared stories with each other that they found across the Internet (Tirado).
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MySpace is the most popular social network in the United States (Glenn).
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Only 12% of young adults use social media ("Social Media Usage: 2005-2015").
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I said goodbye to my usual hobbies like knitting, drawing, and crafts, and began spending all my free time on the computer making my Myspace profile look cute.
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Facebook finally opens to the general public (Digital Trends Staff).
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The popularity of text messaging inspired Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Noah Glass and Evan Williams to come up with Twitter, a service that had the unique feature of allowing users to send “tweets” of 140 characters or less (Hale).
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Realizing the potential and power of social networking, Google launches their own social network GooglePlus (Digital Trends).
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Facebook surpasses MySpace in number of new users per month (Glenn).
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The first iPhone is introduced (Vivian 65) giving people access to social media on the go.
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Introduction of mobile-based platforms begins (Digital Trends Staff)
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MySpace begins its turn from the most popular social media site to a very small user base of primarily musicians, who use it to promote their music or be heard by record producers and other artists (Hale).
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After vowing I'd never get a Facebook because I love Myspace too much, I finally give in and make an account.
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People are spending less time watching television and taking part in other leisure activities in favor of using social media (Vivian 68). But nothing drastic - it's still America's favorite pastime.
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People begin publicly posting way too much personal information and opinions online (but that's just my opinion).
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"Unfriend" is the New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year. (Tirado).
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In attempt to compete with Facebook and Twitter, Google launches Buzz, a social network built into Gmail (Glenn).
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After caving and making a Facebook, I promised that would be it - definitely no Twitter - but soon enough, I was expressing my 140-characters-or-less opinions right alongside everyone else.
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For the first time, the Internet surpasses newspapers as the primary way for Americans to get news (Tirado).
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I become so obsessed with social media that I just HAVE TO get an iPod touch. There's no way I can wait until I get home every day to check Facebook.
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Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger found Instagram (Desreumaux).
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Public sharing of extensive personal information over social media sites raises concerns over privacy (Tirado).
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After claiming I'd never get an iPhone, I finally save up enough to purchase one...and, of course, I fall in love with it and wonder how I ever lived without it.
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Tinder launches in the App store (Crook, Escher).
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Social media provides a way for consumers to interact with companies (Vivian 182).
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Advertisers turn to social “likes” to enhance their brand's visibility (Tirado).
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Twitter generates 12,233 tweets per second during the Super Bowl (Glenn). I, however, am not one of these 12,233 because I don't watch football.
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Tinder boasts more than 10 million daily users (Digital Trends Staff).
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LinkedIn has more than 297 million members (Digital Trends Staff)
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90% of young adults use social media ("Social Media Usage: 2005-2015").
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Snapchat has 150 million active users (York).
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About three-quarters of Facebook users, and around half of Instagram users, visit the site at least once a day ("Social Media Usage: 2005-2015").
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Everything a person does becomes an opportunity for a post on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. Nothing we do can just simply be done and committed to memory anymore, but must be documented and shared (just my opinion, and a slightl exaggeration...but only slight).
