These were based on a simple, streamlined concept of building a personal social network for real-time conversations with individuals and small groups, and achieved an international user base in the hundreds of millions in their prime. Precursors to Today’s Social Media NetworksĪrguably the earliest examples of social media proper were personal Instant Messaging services such as ICQ (launched in November 1996), AOL Instant Mesenger or AIM (1997), Yahoo! Messenger (1998) and MSN Messenger (1999). These conventional online group communications media had been around since the very launch of the global Internet and even, in more limited settings, before it. In this they differ from conventional Internet mailing lists, message boards and even chat rooms where all activity is public or to an audience selected by the moderator. We can narrowly define social media as Internet-mediated membership-based applications that allow members selectively to establish formalised personal connections with other individual members and send private messages to them or to personally selected groups of them. All Rights Reserved.Social media in one form or another have now been established for more than two decades, since the Internet was still in its infancy. You are not to use abusive language, post obscene material, violate copyright laws or incite any type of violence or hatred.Ĭopyright © 2003-2008. Some basic rules of etiquette are enforced in most chat rooms. Parents should always supervise their children on the internet.

This is especially important for young chat room users as pedophiles have been known to use chat rooms to ensnare children.

Never give your full name (using an alias or nickname is always a good idea), never tell your age, and never give out your phone number or address. Never give out personal, identifying information about yourself. These people can be in the same town or on opposite sides of the earth.īecause you can't know for sure who you're talking to in chat rooms, you should always follow some basic rules. They are places where people who have similar interests can get together to talk about whatever topic they choose. Chat rooms are like virtual bars or social clubs.

What happened to the icq chat rooms