Introduction
Depending on what we want to consider the first form of social media, we can trace social interactions back to the 1800s where messages were sent through a telegraph. Moving a little further into the future, the rise of social sites was born with the introduction of the internet. This allowed humans to communicate with one another at very minimal capacity. There is no doubt that social media has changed the lives of many people. It all started, after all, with the human need to communicate with one another by being social outside of physical meetings. Ever since the introduction of the first social media site, we have seen nothing but immense growth in the social media platforms that carry the torch of their predecessors. It is interesting to explore the various ideas creators had when designing these platforms and which platforms still continue to thrive regardless of the cutthroat competition that exists within the social media space. While there are a vast amount of social media platforms that have been born, I wanted to focus on the most popular ones which attract millions of users daily.
Process
In order to help me with my visualization, I had utilized TimelineJS created by Northwestern University’s Knight Lab. The timeline was a great tool to use in order to strengthen the story behind how social media has changed over time.
In order for TimelineJS to create a visual timeline of our story, we had to feed our data into a Google Sheet. The Google Sheet was copied through a template TimelineJS had created on their directions page. In order for the tool to render my data points, I filled out the cells that prompted me to put in the date, headline of the slide, some accompanying text about the event, media, and a media caption. I also decided to switch up the font-type that was originally set to each timeline. After all of this was inputted, a link of the Google Sheet was required to be pasted into a box that TimelineJS provided on their website. As mentioned previously, there has been a profuse amount of social media sites that made their way into the hands of the consumers. Only a fraction of those have gained wild popularity and still continue to attract users. I wanted to focus on the most popular ones because it is no easy feat to remain relevant in a quickly changing world.
Results
In order to help me present the social media giants, I had referred to a number of sources. A Chronological History of Social Media gave a complete overview of about 30 different social media platforms that have been created. While reviewing this source, I familiarized myself with certain social media platforms that I have never heard of either because I was too young or because they suffered an early death. The Evolution of Social Media gave a full in-depth trip into the evolution of social media and where they expect it will head to next. While I had used many of the social media platforms mentioned, it was fascinating to understand the business side of these social media companies, and more so, how companies generate revenue by having people use their platforms.
In order to show how social media has changed and how it continues to fulfill our social human needs, I wanted the timeline to highlight a journey of this evolution.
I decided to go with an image of LinkedIn’s job searching interface. As one of its core features, users have been visiting this site since 2003 in order to conduct a number of career objectives. This image has value for me because I had used the LinkedIn job search in order to land my current internship role at Comcast’s FreeWheel.
For Facebook, I wanted to include a quote that was said by the creator of the platform. This quote goes lovely with the theme of Darren Hardey’s “Compound Effect”(link), which reminds us that small actions compound to have monumental effects.
Youtube
As one of the biggest video platforms that still exists, I wanted to include a little video where one of Youtube’s founders talks about how they had to adapt to a massively growing video sharing platform.
This tweet by Ryan Reynolds felt like a good addition because Twitter was one of the first platforms where regular people could interact with their favorite celebrities. This really changed the game for a lot of people.
Tumblr
I included this image of Tumblr’s interface because it is a great example of how user-friendly the website was from such an early point in time when user experience was not yet quite as popular as it is today.
The image is great because it shows how businesses have utilized the app to allow users to purchase products straight from the app, allowing for ultimate convenience.
I chose this image because it shows how amazing the interface is and what a unique take the creator had when creating this platform.
Snapchat
I chose this image because it highlights some of the fun features that Snapchat offers, making it much different and a fan favorite for the younger generation.
TikTok
I chose this video because it contains some of the most viral videos to ever exist on the platform. Videos like these have turned simple teenagers into millionaires, seemingly overnight.
Reflection
I loved the ability that TimelineJS gifted me in telling my story about social media. I decided to choose this area to focus on because many of these social platforms have transformed many lives. Before these social media platforms, I was not able to stay connected with my family who lives in Poland. Thankfully now, we are able to connect across a number of social media platforms.
In the future, I would love to keep adding to the story. Social media will continue to develop and there will be a number of platforms that people lose their minds over. I am excited to see what the future holds and how it will continue to fulfill our social needs.
References
McFadden, C. (2020, July 02). A Chronological History of Social Media. Retrieved from https://interestingengineering.com/a-chronological-history-of-social-media
The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin and Where Could It Go Next? (2021, March 03). Retrieved from https://online.maryville.edu/blog/evolution-social-media/