To quote a very awesome slide presentation which is credited below, "What the F**k is Social Media?"

Well, it depends on who your asking and how much money they stand to make. There are a lot of definitions out there, but let me simplify it for you:

Social Media is the democratization of communications.

It's not new.

It's not a fad.

And it's not going to go away.

It will change, evolve and reinvent itself many times over in my lifetime, and yours (& it already has).

You can call it what you want, Web 2.0, Social Networking, User Generated Content, whatever, but it all boils down to the same thing: By the people, for the people.

“Technology is shifting the power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are in control.”

Rupert Murdoch

If Murdoch (communications over-lord) can admit it, then so should we. The people who set out to pioneer the brave new world of media democracy accept the fact that:

1. the only paying the next generations will do is (maybe) pay attention (fleetingly), unless they like you, trust you, and think what you are doing is pretty freakin' cool, then they will tout you, share you, listen to you, talk to you and (possibly) pay you $.

2. people understand their attention is valuable to *you* and will exercise their control over that.

3. The know they have to/can opt-in, and that they can opt-out, and if you make either of those processes hard, well, it's just not cool, man.

4. If they want it, they can get it, like, 5 seconds ago, no more waiting. To my generation and all generations to come, it's about getting instant satisfaction.

If you do not accept these simple realities, you do not understand the web, social media, or the path we are heading down. The only way you are going to truly understand what social media is, if you don't already, is to become a participator. Have fun. : )

So now we know a little bit more about social media, but where did it come from?

Humans are social creatures. We like to interact with each other, both positively, and negatively. We like to engage and we like to be engaged. Which is the basic principle of social media.

My journey in social media started back in '98 - ’99 when I joined Bolt.com. Bolt.com (among classmates.com, sixdegrees.com) was one of the first social networking sites on the web. With chat, private messaging, message boards, profiles, tag books (precursor to what we now call a knowledge market) and other forms of social interaction, it was a predecessor to the social networks we see today.

But social media didn't begin with dynamic websites, and in fact, the Internet, by definition, is social media: by the people, for the people. At least it is now, but was it always so? Here is a quick history on the internet (thanks to many people who've shared their knowledge, credited below).

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

Thomas J. Watson Sr., IBM Chairman, 1943

The internet began as a concept military & research application and was developed largely in the halls of universities like MIT, Stanford and Harvard (among many others).

In 1962 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began development on what the head of the project, J.C.R.  Licklider (of MIT then Defense) called a "global network of computers".  Originally designed to create a communications network that would work even if some connections were destroyed in a nuclear attack, (Thanks to the cold war, eh?) this translated later to ARPANET after Leonard Kleinrock (MIT & UCLA) developed a theory of packet switching (remind you of anything else, like quantum theory?) and Lawrence Roberts (MIT) connected a Massachusetts computer with a computer in California in 1965. Roberts moved to DARPA in 1966 and began development of ARPANET, which came online in 1969. The first drastic steps towards what we think of the internet today.

A quick play-book of "connected" computers:

• 1969: UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, University of Utah
• 1970: MIT, Harvard, BBN, SDC
• 1971: Standford, MIT's Lincoln Labs, Carnegie-Mellon, Case-Western Reserve U
• Soon after? NASA/Ames, Mitre, Burroughs, RAND, U of Illinois

And so the tide went.

But at this time, the web as we know it, open, social, and accessible did not yet exist.  The "member's only club" was restricted to military, "ivy", libraries, and the companies who had the $$$$ to invest in or purchase membership.

In 1986, the National Science Foundation (NSF) developed the "backbone" of the Internet — a 56kb, cross country network — and had developed rules for non-commercial use, which, while good in one way, also contributed to the elitism. So even when the net was becoming more user-friendly, it's user base was still restricted.

Despite the frevernt stigma surrounding the word, hackers began to created the "net" we know today.

But back to Social Media:

At some point in the fifties, the "phone phreakers" were born. These phreakers, or hackers, as some may call them, built boxes that would produce the right tone to allow them to make free calls. They would break into corporate lines and "pirate" unused extensions and started the first "blogs" or discussion forums.

You could call into these numbers, leave voicemails, listen to voicemails and participate in the first on "line" communities.

In 1979 the first BBS's or Bulletin Board System was released by Ward Christensen. A BBS was a digital messageboard where one person could log in at a time, leave messages, read messages, etc. This is where we see the advent of "shareware" and the pirating of digital files. Around this time private companies offering limited access were also popping up.

These individuals, organizations and businesses embodied the true spirit of Social Media, as they were dreaming of the Internet (as we know it today) before it even existed.

On August 6th, 1991, the Internet officially came "online" as the World Wide Web, though it was not readily available to the public (still to government, higher education, libraries, and hackers) until '94, '95 when ISPs began doing business in most major population centers.

Since then we've seen social media explode, from IRC, to the Instant Message, to the real-time, location based communications of today, like Twitter or Rally.

But still, what the F**k is social media?

“We are advertis’d by our loving friends.”

William Shakespeare

As always, Shakespeare says it best. Call it what you want, but the key to Social Media is participation. The rest is in our hands. Are you a business and looking to apply Social Media? Check out my post, the Three E's of Social Media.

The future of the Internet is literally what we make of it. I'd like to leave you with some quotes that prove "the greatest mistake a (wo)man can make is to be afraid of making on."

“Everything that can be invented, has been invented.”

Charles H. Duell, US Comissioner of Patents – 1899

“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

Warren Buffett

‘The word blog is irrelevant. What’s important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person ( and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they shrae what they care about with the world.”

Seth Godin

‘The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller than the one computer at MIT in 1965, So what used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket, what fits in your pocket now will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years.”

Ray Kurzweil

Links:

http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-social-media

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

http://socialmediarockstar.com/history-of-social-media

http://babellist.xnet2.com/9809/msg00460.html

http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html