The phrase “social networks have become an integral part of our lives” is too obvious. Who doesn’t start his/her morning checking FB, Twitter and VK news feeds? Of course, people living in third world countries have very different problems, but the first and the second world countries people are completely stuck in social networks. We are going to examine what has happened to the services for communication and what they will face in the near future.
Long before…
Originally, the term “social network “ had nothing to do with the internet. The person who invented the term was James Barnes. In 1954 he coined it in his book “Class and committees in a Norwegian island parish”. According to Barnes’ conception, social network is a structure, consisting of individuals or groups, tied with unilateral or bilateral relations. By the way, any social network works this way: unilateral relations mean users’ subscription to communities and bilateral ones are characterized by correspondence between friends.
The advent of the Internet provided technological opportunities for communication services creation. Wide Area Networks were solely military technologies at that time. The current World Wide web forebear is considered to be American project called ARPANET. However, the similar concepts were developed both in the British and French laboratories.
Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee the Internet was made public in 1991. In addition, a real landmark event was a development of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) by the Finnish student Jarkko Oikarinen. The IRC protocol permitted to transmit messages in real time. The real time communication is a distinguishing feature of social networks. The forums previously popular ways of communication didn’t have this function.
The social network concept was looming on the horizon and the technological opportunities of the 90’s significantly increased. It just remained to wait for the first service creation.
The pioneers
The first modern sense social network was Classmates.com. Later it became a base for the Russian social network called Odnoklassniki.ru. Randy Conrad founded it in 1995. The Classmates.com was pretty simple- every American could find his/her classmates having chosen the state, city or town and school. These settings were written down by the system during the registration process, so the new user was suggested recommended friends from the chosen school. Classmates.com was highly estimated and is still a very popular network , as there are more than 50 million of users, given the fact, that it is just for the American citizens.
Since 2002 the social networks are developing their functions. Whereas previously these services were for text chat only, where the user looked for the interlocutors on his/her own according to the settings, nowadays social networks support photo-/video uploads and audio. Since that time celebrities have started launching their accounts in social media too. Such services as MySpace and LiveJournal have become a way of communication with the audience.
Nevertheless, the majority of platforms were either highly specialized or local before the foundation of Facebook in 2004. None of social networks could unite the world.
The great and terrible Facebook
In 2004 Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook what not only changed social networks themselves, but made the communication free of boarders. Since that time it has become possible to have friends from different countries and continents and , however, never meet them. Such kind of virtual friendship has become a symbol of the early twenty first century.
The Zuckerberg’s creation didn’t become global right at that moment. Originally, the Facebook only connected the USA higher education institutions. The publicity intrinsic to modern social media wasn’t anticipated. Only in 2005 the FB registry became open without reference to college or professional community. Why did Facebook rocket? Before Zuckerberg’s FB it wasn’t possible to like photos, videos or posts. The social network played with users’ ego.
After the FB success none of social networks brought anything special. Of course, Twitter developed microblogging and Instagram switched users’ attention from text to images. Nevertheless, it’s just a variation on Facebook. Meanwhile, people are spending more and more time in social networks. It could no longer be said that this kind of services implies just entertainment. Social medias has become a tool for brand promotion and sometimes a way to make money. It is obvious, that current services need to be upgraded. They were evolving towards the growing number of users for a very long time.
The bright future
Digital networks are supposed to leapfrog in social network development. The digital networks, indeed, offer not only communication. The digital network concept resembles the Swiss army knife multifunctionality. It is one platform uniting all the services the user is accustomed to.
Some attempts to create a “superplatform” were made even before, for instance, Facebook “Shopping” function and the chance to create VK based online shops. However, it was just a variation on the existing projects. The Blockchain has changed the game rules. Firstly, such problem as hacking into social-media account is solved. It is impossible to hack into the Blockchain. As a result, all the trading operations based on the platform are becoming available and reliable. Secondly, the launch of the Blockchain is significantly changing the economy of projects, giving a chance to integrate the internal currency. How tokens will be gained and used in every project is beyond the scope
The first-ever All.me digital network supposes the receipt of tokens for the advertising broadcast to the followers. Such concept permits to create a sustainable project economy giving everyone a chance to make money. In this, the token value will be high enough as it will be used to pay for goods and services on the platform internal marketplace called “the Showcase”.
Certainly, the digital network concept should stand the test of time, but even now it is obvious that all.me is a pioneer. The ecosystem concept is becoming more and more popular. It means that social networks will add all the possible services they can afford and the user needs. The future of social networks is coming and it will be brighter and more interesting than someone thought.
Первая в истории цифровая сеть all.me предполагает получение токенов за трансляцию рекламы своим подписчикам. Такая концепция позволяет создать устойчивую экономику проекта, дав возможность заработать любому желающему. При этом ценность токена будет высока, ведь именно с его помощью будут оплачиваться товары и услуги на внутреннем маркетплейсе платформы, «витрине».
Разумеется, концепции цифровой сети ещё необходимо пройти проверку временем, но уже сейчас понятно, что all.me — это первая ласточка. Концепция экосистем становится все более популярной, а это значит, что социальные сети будут подключать все возможные сервисы, какие нужны пользователю и до каких они смогут дотянуться. Будущее социальных сетей уже наступает, и оно гораздо ярче и интересней, чем это кто-либо мог представить.
