A brave new world

First impressions are always the most important, and social media is an important topic to me. I grew up before social media really came into its own, and that unique chance to watch the world evolve and become far more connected than ever thought possible has been interesting and challenging none the less.

There have been a great many new revelations regarding the ever-changing world of social media. Since the dawn of the internet, many of us have had the distinct privilege to watch the internet evolve from a simple script, to the interactive experiences we see today. Like the ever-evolving human race, our online personas have also had to evolve with the times.

Back in the long-long ago, say about the late 90’s, you could practically do and say whatever you wanted on the internet and get away with it. There were no profiles with your name and face attached to them. AOL chatroom's and AOL instant Messenger (AIM) were the preferred weapon of choice. Yahoo online forums, and your generic run of the mill message board. Your boss had no clue who was bad mouthing him, and you could change your online name at will.

Then Myspace came along, and the rules of the web changed for all of us. Why was Myspace so ground breaking in the greater scheme of the internet? How did Myspace break through the white noise and become so successful? The answer for that question is simple, it was user friendly to a degree never thought possible.

Seemingly over night the names and faces were connected, people knew who you were, what you liked, what you wanted to like, and how you behaved towards others. Most of us had absolutely zero clue as to how this would affect us in the long run. Myspace found a way to make the internet personal, and seemingly rewrote the book of human interaction.  Now people could see everything you did...

In the old days, you could tell someone off and they wouldn’t know who you were, now with Myspace you could “run your mouth” and have it catch up to you in the real world. Your friends would start to judge you for your online behavior, potential employers would run a Myspace search and find out who you really were. In short, Myspace opened a door that could never be closed ever again. You were out and exposed on the internet, and if you chose to not participate you were left out. Rand Fishkin back in 2006 wrote a fantastic article on why Myspace was so popular, I’d advise you all to check out his unique point of view.  A simple explanation as to why Myspace was so popular...

Myspace grabbed a hold of the internet and lumped it into one basic user-friendly interface. On Myspace you could tailor your online profile, you could learn basic HTML and set your profile up however you wanted. You could add music to your Myspace page, you could write page long rants about your current drama in your life, you could also show the world who you’re top 8 friends were.

At it’s height Myspace had over 61+ million users, and those 61 million users were all connected and watching and judging one another. I personally think Robin Swire provided a good indepth look into how Myspace changed the game. How Myspace influenced social networking

The world had no concept of the terms “cyber bullying” or “social media” or “Online presence.” Did anyone have an idea on what a selfie was? Myspace was the opening act for what would become the greatest digital revolution since the e-mail.

Tomorrow I will take a deeper look into how Myspace changed the world as we knew it, and how its successors followed the model and improved upon it. Later I will discuss your personal online presence and finally your professional online presence.