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Jesse Huff
Professor Stan Kustesky
Univ 111
18 October 2014
The Histories of Social Media
There seem to be social media websites popping up on the internet frequently.
More often we are exposed to the postings on social media and being asked to post to
social media. As large as these social media “giants” can be, they have their small
beginnings, one in particular had a great fall.
What seems to be one of the largest and most popular social media platforms is
Twitter. Frequently used by celebrities, corporations, etc. for general updates and status
reports, Twitter has become one of the most used platforms starting approximately 8
years ago (Johnson). According to Nicholas Carlson’s article, The Real History of Twitter,
the idea was originally a podcasting platform by the name of "Odeo" and was to be
founded by Evan Williams and Biz Stone, both ex-Google employees. Carlson goes on to
explain that Odeo was struck down once Apple released their podcasting platform on
iTunes causing Williams and Stone to recruit Jack Dorsey, thus creating what we now
know as Twitter. At least, that’s the most popular story.
Further into The Real History of Twitter, Carlson states that according to
employees and investors of Odeo, the idea was actually created by a man known as
Noah Glass. Glass’s idea was to be able to call a phone number and the message you
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deliver through the phone would be converted into an mp3 file directly hosted on the
internet. This is where Evan Williams walks into the picture.
Williams had recently sold Blogger, an aptly named blogging company, to Google
and was an early and very involved investor in Odeo. So much so that Odeo’s
development shifted from Glass’s apartment to Williams’. An early employee, Ray
Mcclure, explains that Williams was interested in Odeo but, “it was mostly Noah’s thing”
(Carlson). Moving the project into a new office, web designer Jack Dorsey was hired to
work on it, with Williams becoming the CEO of Odeo.
In Fall of 2005, iTunes tore this Odeo dream apart by starting their podcast
platform which would be included in every iPod sold to consumers. The team behind
Odeo began to lose interest in podcasts and eventually that idea died out. They wanted
new ideas to build upon. Jack Dorsey mentioned he was really interested in “status”,
what people are doing at given times, and wanted to push the product in that direction
(Carlson).
The original idea was called “Twttr”, where one would send a text to a phone
number and that text would then be delivered to all their friends. Twttr would
eventually develop into the more “vowelful” Twitter. Contrary to the supposed official
story, Twitter was ultimately Glass’s project rather than Dorsey’s and/or Williams’. Glass
pushed harder to get this idea established and built than the others did, according to
sources directly involved in the development, and he had a distinct and clear vision of
what Twitter would become. If that wasn’t enough, Glass was generally much more
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excited and ecstatic about the project. Dorsey and Williams were not nearly as excited,
“not even remotely,” says an investor of Odeo, George Zachary (Carlson).
Glass was so excited about Twitter he explained to Zachary that it’s “awesome”,
and it makes you feel like you are “right there with the person” giving this emotional
connection to these people down the street or miles and miles away (Carlson). His goal
was not simply to make a website, but a platform that people could develop emotional
connections on with just 140 characters.
Glass does not believe he is the one and only founder of Twitter, but his name
has practically been erased from the History of Twitter and that is such a shame
considering the amount of effort and heart he put into the project. In 2013, Twitter was
said to be worth around 10 to 11 billion dollars with 270+ million users (Fiegerman).
Although considered a “blogging” website, Tumblr is just as much of a social
media giant. Tumblr was created by David Karp in 2007 after being “frustrated” by the
limitations of tools such as Blogger, Flickr, and Youtube. Karp was happy with the tools
he had access to, but the limitations proved to be too irritating for him (The Daily Dot).
Thus, Tumblr was born.
While Karp created Tumblr, “tumblelogs” which Tumblr is based on, were
created a couple years prior. Tumblelogs is a term used to describe “stripped-down
blogging and content curation” and it originates in Germany in 2005 (The Daily Dot).
Chris Neukirchen was a young coding expert living in Germany who used already
established blogging websites, but felt there were things he wanted to share that he
deemed too short to post on a blogging site. He then created a website where he could
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post links, photos, and quotes he found interesting, simultaneously creating the idea of
tumblelogs.
Soon after, Neukirchen gained a hefty following and was noticed by more
people, specifically Marcel Molina. Molina was also a coding whiz and admired the
tumblelog idea, but also saw areas where it could be even better. He then created the
second tumblelog, Projectionist.
These tumblelogs continued to catch on, and soon Molina got a call from David
Karp informing him of his new website: Tumblr. Tumblr allowed users to create their
own personal URL and share an endless amount of ideas and photos, making it an ideal
place for artists to share their creations. Tumblr soon became an empire, but also
pushed Molina, Neukirchen and Karp apart. “The people who plant the seed are often
forgotten throughout history,” says Molina, fittingly. (The Daily Dot).
The saddest story of them all falls upon MySpace. Myspace was created in 2003
by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe and was an absolutely massive social media
platform (Random History). Most people had their own MySpace page and it seemed
the only ones that did not had never even heard of it.
When you created your account, Tom Anderson was your first “friend” and from
there it was simple. Much like Facebook, people would post statuses and photos and
links and they would express themselves through this medium. However, being “much
like Facebook” seemed to be the downfall of MySpace. As convenient as it was,
something about Facebook pulled people away from MySpace. It may have been the
simplicity or maybe the sleeker look. Although it has been practically abandoned in a
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sense, the website is still up and running with a sleeker design and more of a push
towards music and sharing your musical creations. Alas, as much as MySpace tried, it
didn’t last. Other popular social media giants took over and left them panting in the
dust.
Social media evolves to fit with the times. Some of these websites needed time
to catch on. Maybe one could say these social media platforms were ahead of their time
at one point. But once they caught on, they really grabbed ahold of society and didn’t
loosen their grip. However some platforms did not fair so well. These platforms got old
and died out without so much as a positive mention anymore. Whether the platforms
last or not, social media proves to be a popular, and arguably important, part of every
day life. There were small beginnings, but they developed into something big,
something extraordinary. The times are changing and with us grows social media, for
better or for worse.
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Works Cited:
Carlson, Nicholas. "The Real History Of Twitter." Business Insider. Business Insider,
Inc, 13 Apr. 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
Fiegerman, Seth. "How Much Is Twitter Worth?" Mashable. N.p., 12 Sept. 2013. Web. 22
Oct. 2014.
Fitton, Laura, Michael E. Gruen, and Leslie Poston. Twitter for Dummies. Hoboken (NJ): J.
Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print.
Johnson, Mark. "The History of Twitter." Socialnomics. N.p., 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 19
Oct. 2014.
"The Real Origins of Tumblr." The Daily Dot. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
""A Place for Friends" A History of MySpace." Random History. N.p., 14 Aug. 2008.
Web. 19 Oct. 2014.