Ars Technica article - A history of online public messaging

[EricGT]

First post: A history of online public messaging

[merefield (Robert)]

Ouch!

I’m actually surprised that “social media” hasn’t plateaued more …

[jimkleiber]

I wonder if part of it not plateauing more is if the definition of “social media” has expanded over time.

[merefield (Robert)]

Yeah, I wondered that too Jim

[jimkleiber]

I mean, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Mastodon, Bluesky, to name a “few”…most tend to have different structures for communication, whereas I imagine Fidonet, BBS, and PLATO were pretty specific.

But I’m glad someone posted this article, as I’ve often wanted to learn more about some of these older forms of internet communication, so thank you for posting it EricGT

[awesomerobot (Kris)]

Looks a little more plateau-like with a logarithmic scale

[Jagster (Jakke Lehtonen)]

There is something like 10 BBS-users left, not bad

[merefield (Robert)]

That looks better.

I like that PLATO actually plateau’s!

[jimkleiber]

@jimkleiber

But I’m glad someone posted this article, as I’ve often wanted to learn more about some of these older forms of internet communication, so thank you for posting it EricGT

I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Despite being someone who studied electrical/computer engineering and then intercultural communication, I had been quite unfamiliar with the history of public communication amongst computers. I recommend it to anyone who may have heard of such terms but don’t know how they all fit together. So again, thank you.