From high school students to executives, everyone is using social media to connect in different ways. It may be because with such a large user base tapping into the web, there really is something for everyone. Job seekers turn to LinkedIn for career connections. Musicians are still turning to MySpace to make a name for themselves. Marketers are giving their products a voice through Facebook and Twitter. Publishers are re-inventing themselves with new ways to deliver content.

With this infographic, we’ll take a look at a few of the fears and promises of each of these points of view and try to shed some light on why it works.

More Social Networking History

The first social computer network was created in 1978 with CBBS, the Chicago Bulletin Board System. Bulletin Boards were hosted on personal computers connected through telephone-based modems.  These systems allowed for access to decentralized forums (Usenet), social gaming and file transfer.

The next evolution was dial-in networks such as America Online and CompuServe.  One of my favorites in this time period Sierra’s ImagiNation Network which replaced the text based BBS systems with a rich gaming environment that took the form of an amusement park. You could create avatars, chat and connect for games.

Even before Friendster, the connection concept was online with SixDegrees which started in 1997 with the idea of connecting contacts, then it was MySpace with its powerful database.

Now it’s all about Facebook, which has more users than the population of any country in the world outside of the U.S., China or India.  Television took 13 years to become as popular as the Internet, which only took four years.  More than 100 million people have joined Facebook over nine months.

Guest Author: This is a guest post by Brian E. Young, a graphic designer and illustrator who blogs and podcasts about creativity at www.Sketchee.com.