![Atop Empire State- in construction; Chrysler Bldg & [Daily] News in middle foreground. (1931)](http://cdn1.retronaut.co/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Atop-Empire-State-in-construction-Chrysler-Bldg-Daily-News-in-middle-foreground.-1931--199x123.jpg "Balancing on the Empire State, 1920s")
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Monsanto “House of the Future”, 1957
2,000 year old computer in Lego
Retrofit TV for iPhone
US Gov. Surplus Space Suit Ad
Evolution of Nintendo Characters
USB Film Rolls
The Writing Ball
ZX Spectrum Plus User Guide
Husband tests bullet proof glass with wife, 1930s
Miniature Pigeon Cameras, 1903
'Oldest Surviving Websites'
iCade
'Plaskon' Ads, 1940s
Video Games Then and Now
The Pedascope
'What is the Internet Anyway?', NBC Today, January 1994
New York Subway, 1973
USA / USSR Hotline, 1985
"Introducing Macintosh" ad insert in Newsweek, 1984
Zenith Chromacolor TV, 1970s
Atari catalog, 1978
The End? Sure?
“Early web browsers” in 1978?
As far as I know, the first web browser was http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb in 1990.
AOL had instant messaging as part of its service since its pre-launch. I know, as I used it back in 1987.
The 20th Century part of this “history” is mighty buggy.
’78 to ’94 seems like a bit of a jump to me. I don’t see how you could miss out ‘The Well’, founded in 1985 by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL
Vkontakte social network is very popular in former USSR republics.
christophe is correct. The World Wide Web was created in 1990. Also, I don;t see geocities as having been social networking; it was just one of the early ways to create a free web page.
One omission that was pretty important to me was Qlink, or Quantum Link – I was on the internet in 1985. Here is the wikipedia article on it, and as you can see by the screenshot of the menu, the whole thing was based around “People Connection”. I met people from all over the world there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Link
This is fantastic, I forgot all about Friendster and just logged into my old profile there. It’s like a time capsule!
What? No livejournal? Bah!
Also IRC was totally skipped.. since 1988, still working just as it should.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irc
Geocities was early social networking in it’s original intention of neighborhoods. I remember making my first geocities site and being greeted by my neighbor and introduced to various community building “block” BBS, the content councils and such things. When Geocities was small, it was very social. It was only in it’s later years that the community aspects were scrapped and it just became a webhost.
I did online shopping back in 1987. I ordered parts through the military system for my “shop” in the Marines. I used a phone modem, dialing through to the Quartermaster Depot and entering the part numbers of the resisters and tweakers and capacitors we needed.
My husband met his first wife through an online BBS, and met me on another website as well!
I love the Web!
@Jinx: That the tech existed for online shopping and was in use by the military in 1987 is really fascinating! Commercial use of the internet was prohibited until 1993 or thereabouts, so they were pretty much the only ones who could do it. (Al Gore’s famously-misquoted claim of having “invented the internet” has to do with his having played a key role in the legislation that allowed internet commerce).
No livejournal, no IRC, no ICQ.
This list is far from complete.
Like ohers I am missing ICQ up on this list. Pretty sure that came out in ’96. Also what about MSN? Don’t they both beat AOL’s AIM in this list?
I agree that Geocities wasn’t about networking.
The article missed a big issue with Social Networks here. the BBS and early usnet groups were not fueled by advirtizing. Friendster was the beginning of the end when they put corporations between friends. And now look what we’ve got…