The start of Social Networking/Social Media

One of the first Social Networking websites to start up on the Internet was called SixDegrees. This website launched in 1997 and featured letting their users have friends and make their own profiles, as well as sending messages and posting bulletin board items. A description of what sixdegrees was comes straight from themselves in 1998:

"sixdegrees is a revolutionary, free Web-based networking tool that lets members tap into the power of  their greatest resource - the people they know and trust. sixdegrees offers several services, all of which help members capitalize on their own trusted network of contacts in order to gain valuable help and information, communicate directly with their own growing virtual community and make new contacts quickly and easily."

I found this embedded within the code of the website. It was stored under the <meta> tag meaning it was not displayed on the website but search engines and other web services could use it for keywords and to use as a description.

Picture of SixDegrees.com in 1998

To get this picture, I used a website called web.archive.org which is a website that takes snapshots of websites. Unfortunately, I am not sure if the original code (HTML) that the website used in 1998 was preserved.  As you can see from the picture of the websites login screen, it features a logo, the title, login boxes and very basic designs.

Picture of SixDegrees.com in 2000

From looking at the comparison of just 2 years, we can see how much the front page of the website evolved. It went from just a simple login screen with basic elements to more of how a website is structured today. There are ad's all over the website (to generate revenue), much more content, and most of all, there has been a massive increase in features. I would have loved to compare how this actual website had updated in terms of Social Media, however, I was unable to find any pictures of what the website looked like after logging in.

This social networking website ran from 1997-2001, and as it may not look like much, it had roughly 3.5 million users at its prime and gave way to the social media websites today.