Social Networking: The Past

Mark Suster Dec 3, 2010

Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part guest post by venture capitalist Mark Suster of GRP Partners on “Social Networking: The Past, Present, And Future.” Be sure to also read Part II and Part III.

This series is an adaptaion of a recent talk he gave at the Caltech / MIT Enterprise Forum on “the future of social networking.” You can watch the video here , or you can scroll quickly through the Powerpoint slides embedded at the bottom of the post or here on DocStoc. Follow him on Twitter @msuster.

Social Networking 25 Years Ago: CompuServ, Prodigy & The Well

Listening to young people talk about social networking as a new phenomenon is a bit like hearing people talk about a remake of a famous song from my youth as though it was the original version.  If you think “Don’t Stop Believing” was first recorded on the show Glee I’m talking to you.  And so it goes with social networking.

Yes, I was doing it when I was a teenager and yes, it was online, too.  We were on services called CompuServe and Prodigy.  Other people were in the online community called “The Well” (founded in 1985).  We connected for the same reasons you do today.  We were looking for what I call the “6 C’s of Social Networking” – Communications, connectedness, common experiences, content, commerce & cool experiences (fun!).  There were chat rooms, discussion groups, dating, classified ads—you name it.

In in the early 90′s I was in my early 20′s and I programmed on mainframe computers using COBOL, CICS and DB2.  We had email, instant messaging, group calendars, discussion boards, etc. It isn’t new stuff.  It just works better now and there are more people doin’ it.

The Bridge Between Online Services & The Internet: AOL

And then came AOL.  It preceded the WWW.  It was an online community like CompuServe and eventually started offering people dial-up access to the Internet for a monthly fee.  It became the onramp for newbies.  The funny thing about AOL is that while you dialed up to the Internet, the goal of AOL was to keep you locked into their proprietary content and thus earned the classification of “walled garden” because they kept you inside AOL.  They had a proprietary browser, their own search engine, their own content, chat rooms, email system, etc.

As I like to say, my Mom would call me proudly and say, “Honey, I’m on the Internet!”  And I’d say sardonically, “no, Mom, you’re not on the Internet.  You’re on AOL!”  I don’t think she really understood the difference.  AOL was controlled by one company and the Internet was distributed.  AOL controlled the services, taxed companies to access users and decided what was good or bad.  AOL was closed, the Internet was open.

But AOL brought online services, email, chat and discussion boards to the masses and thus educated a generation that paved the way for others.  They blanketed the country in CDs stuffed inside of food packages and service as coasters on airplanes.  At it’s peak AOL had about 20 million US subscribers.  That might not sound like a lot in a Facebook world but remember that these people were paying an average of about $20 / month to AOL for access alone (i.e. $5 billion in annual subscription revenues leaving out advertising or eCommerce).

Brands didn’t advertise their web pages they advertised “AOL Keywords.”  You couldn’t pick up a magazine in the 96-99 timeframe without seeing AOL Keywords advertised everywhere.  If you were a newly minted, venture-backed consumer Internet company you had to have a deal with AOL to reach your customers.  They controlled distribution to the masses.

When Time Warner & AOL merged it was widely feared that this would be a monopoly that would control the Internet.  Ha.

As I write these words I’m aware that I could practically change the words AOL and Facebook for much of this section and with a few factual tweaks it might not be noticeable to the reader who I was talking about.  More on that later.

Social Networking in Web 1.0: GeoCities, Tripod & Yahoo! Groups

By the mid-nineties we had the World Wide Web, which gave us a standard way to publish web pages using HTML.  Smart people understood that people still wanted to accomplish on the world wide web all of things that we did in the pre-Internet world.  Companies like GeoCities & Tripod built tools that let you publish web pages that could be discoverable by others.

Yahoo! rose to prominence by offering a free, ad-supported alternative to all of the crap your mom got on AOL for $20 / month.  After a few acquisitions they offered many of the services you think about as foundations to social networks today.  They had mail, IM, groups, answers, etc.  Groups in particular became the standard for clubs across the company to communicate to their churches, mothers’ clubs & schools.  Yahoo! then bought GeoCities for $3.6 billion.  They looked unstoppable.  Ha.

Yes, social networks of 2010 have much better usability, have better developed 3rd-party platforms and many more people are connected.  But let’s be honest – they’re mostly the same old shit, reinvented, with more people online and trained.

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注释：本文是GRP Partners风险投资家Mark Suster发表的“社交网络的过去、现在和未来”三部曲的第一步。这个系列是Suster最近在加州理工学院/麻省理工学院论坛的“社交网络的未来”演讲的整理稿。

25年前的社交网络：CompuServ, Prodigy 和 The Well（转自译言网）

听现在的年轻人讲起社交网络这个新东西，就有点像我年轻的时候首次听别人讨论某首歌时就把它当做那首歌的原版了。如果你觉得“Don’t Stop Believing”这首歌是在我演讲的时候首次录制的，那么接下来将的社交网络也一样。

是的，我年轻的时候也玩过社交网络这玩意儿，并且也是在线的。我们使用诸如CompuServe和Prodigy的在线服务。其他人则加入一个叫做The Well（成立于1985年）的在线社区。我们连接在一起的原因和你们今天一样，都是寻找今天我们称之为6C的东西——沟通（Communications）、连接（connectedness）、共同的体验（common experiences）、内容（content）、商业（commerce ）以及酷玩意儿（cool experiences）。当年有聊天室、讨论组、约会以及分类广告，无奇不有。

  

90年代初期，我刚20出头，我使用COBOL、CICS和DB2为大型计算机编程。我们那时有email、即时通讯、群组日历、讨论版等等等等。这不是什么新鲜东西，只是现在的更好点并且玩的人多点。

AOL：在线服务和因特网的桥梁

后来就是所谓的AOL（美国在线）了。它先于万维网产生（WWW）。就像CompuServe 和一样，它还是也是个在线社区，只是后来开始为网民们提供上网的接入，并且每月收取一定的费用。它成了新手们上网的通道。关于AOL，搞笑的是，当你接通因特网时，他们的目的就是把你锁在他们的私有空间里。因此，AOL也被称为“围墙花园”，因为他们把你一直留在AOL内部。他们有私有的浏览器，自己的搜索引擎，自己的网络内容，聊天室以及电子邮件系统等等等等。

我想说的是，我妈妈可能会很自豪的跟我说：“亲爱的，我在上网！”我则讽刺道：“不，妈妈，你没在上网，你在上AOL。”我知道她不会真正明白两者的区别。AOL被一家公司所控制，而因特网时分散的。AOL控制了可接入用户的服务和税务公司，并且好与坏都是由他们决定的。AOL是封闭的，而因特网时开放的。

但是AOL给大众带来了网络服务、电子邮件、聊天和讨论版，因此也教育了一代人，而这些人也为后来者铺平了道路。他们覆盖了全国上下装在食物包裹里的CD和飞机上的垫子。巅峰时刻，AOL约有200万的用户。这些对于Facebook来说当然不多，但是请记住，所有这些人当时都必须每月向AOL支付20美元的接入费。（也即，不包括广告和电子商务在内，AOL每年光从用户手中获得的收入就高达50亿美元。）

商家们不是为他们自己的网页打广告，而是为AOL的关键字打广告。每份杂志的96到99个时间表内，到处都能看到AOL关键字的广告。假如你是个拿有风投的新生互联网企业用户，为了抓住用户你必须跟AOL打交道。他们控制着大众所能接触的一切。

当时代华纳和AOL宣布合并时，大家都异常恐惧，担心它们会垄断继而控制整个互联网，呵呵。

Web 1.0中的社交网络：GeoCities, Tripod 和 Yahoo! Groups

  

90年代中期，互联网产生了，我们也有了用HTML发布网页的标准方式。一些机灵的人意识到，人们可能想在互联网上干他们在没有互联网时能干的所有事情。像GeoCities 和Tripod 这样的公司就开发了一些工具，让你能够发布容易被别人发现的网页。

Yahoo! 则通过提供免费的带有广告的类似AOL提供的每月20美元的服务异军突起。通过几个并购，他们又为用户提供了更多的服务，这些服务就是今天我们讲的的社交网络的基础。他们有电子邮件、即时通讯工具、群组和问答等等。群组则成为公司用户用来跟他们的教堂、母亲俱乐部和学习交流的标准工具。然后Yahoo!以36亿美元的价格买下了GeoCities ，这在当时是不可抵挡的。

是的，2010年的设计网络具有更强的可用性，更好的第三方开发平台，并且也有更多的人聚集在一起。但谦虚点说，它们跟过去的没啥两样，只是重新改造过了并且玩的人也更多了。