April 13, 2020

Social Media Throwback

Nicona Lane – Digital Media Manager

Imagine that it’s the late 1990s or early 2000s and you’re about to sign on to AOL chat using dial-up or you’re picking out your favorite song for your MySpace profile. Better yet, you’re dabbling in coding to make your page the trendiest and hide your “top 4.”
Then in 2004, “The Facebook” launched and soon surpassed all of its social media predecessors. Other platforms have since launched, but Facebook continues to be the most used social media site.
TikTok is rapidly growing while Twitter follows behind Facebook’s portfolio of Instagram and WhatsApp. Maybe you’re like me, a millennial parent that downloaded TikTok during the 2020 COVID-19 quarantine and have been singing, “Handshake in the Hamptons, pew pew pew, classy, bougie, renegade,” while going around the house dancing.
People craving to be seen and noticed by the world leads us to believe how imperative social media platforms are. The astounding amounts of usage that social media clocks in is constantly ticking which enables competitors to jump at the chance to create the next phenomenon. As new generations unfold, there seems to be a reliance to stay in tune with what is trending.

Take a look at your timeline from the moment you started Facebook to today. The level of content such as using hashtags and including your location that has developed, along with verbiage that has changed throughout the years, is comical. Flash back 20 years, Windows Live Messenger was among one of the most popular media outlets to connect with friends by IM-ing each other from their stationary computers. To live in a world that you could not socialize with friends from a few clicks from your watch is unthinkable in today’s society.

Every second that goes by, there are live-stream stories, celebrity cameos giving a shout out and new trending hashtags on Twitter. The intermix of social media such as TikTok videos becoming a part of Instagram stories may be the case presently, but having one site containing it all could be legendary.

The next generation of social media platforms will be based on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Social media platforms will adapt as technology expands but will they be able to keep up with innovators and disrupters who introduce new tools or platforms?

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