Anybody remember AOL?

In the late 1990's AOL was to "The Internet" what Facebook is to "Social Networks."  These were still primarily the "Dial-up Days" and it seemed that the bulk of internet users were on AOL and for these users, AOL was the Internet!  But where is AOL today?

The roots of online communities

Frequently, I hear people proclaim how "The Internet" suddenly came into being in 1994 with the Netscape browser or how "The Social Web" didn't exist "just a few years ago" but that's really not the case.  Whilewe can safely say "The World Wide Web" was made possible with the advent of the browser, I should note that the Internet recently experienced its 40th birthday.  It's through those four decades of computer and online experience that we've seen a few patterns emerge.

While "Social Media", the "Social Web" and "Social Networking" are relatively new terms, the roots of building "community" and sharing experiences and content on computer networks go back to Usenet newsgroups (c. 1979), the Commodore 64 (c. 1982), bulletin board systems (BBS) and FidoNet (c. 1984).  It just took 20+ years for these communities to evolve into social websites like Facebook and along the way we saw proprietary, closed systems and networks give way to more cross-platform and open replacements.

"The future resembles the past"

Before we had AOL, there was CompuServe and before we had Facebook, there was MySpace.  Both CompuServe and MySpace could be seen as innovators who introduced a new chapter in online community.  However, both lost their top spot because a next-generation company figured out how to offer a better online experience.  It happens all the time in technology – remember VisiCalc?  WordPerfect?  Yahoo's web directory?  In each case, a second-generation product replaced its predecessor – e.g. Excel, Word, Google.

It's significant to note that last week the CEO of MySpace announced in an interview with the Financial Times that MySpace would no longer try to compete with Facebook.  It's official, MySpace is out.  However, that's not the end of the story because I don't think Facebook will live happily ever-after.  Like rust, the internet never sleeps!

Where is AOL today?

AOL is still around and is in the news because Time-Warner is finally shedding the albatross around its figurative neck.  Silicon Alley Insider has a great chart that highlights the rise and fall of the mighty AOL empire:

For years AOL was "the Internet" for many people – it was a "walled garden" that defined their internet experience.

In the late 1990's, during those final days of AOL's ascendancy, I remember asking every AOL user I knew, "Why are you still on AOL when you can get the same content in a more robust environment using a browser and any internet service provider?"  The best reason I could discern was inertia kept most people from switching away.

The Internet can't be contained

Eventually, AOL's proprietary architecture could not keep up with the rapid evolution of the internet and people began venturing beyond AOL's walls looking for something better.   Remember when you could only share instant messages with someone on AOL Instant Messenger if you were on AIM?

Today, I see Facebook as "the AOL of Social Media" (circa 1999 when AOL was still King of the Hill).  And just like the evolution of the Internet in the last decade, I see no reason why the evolution of social networking should stop or that it must be contained in a walled garden.  Therefore, it seems to me that history is probably already planning to repeat itself.  Just as "the internet" broke out of AOL, I believe "the social web" will do the same, eventually, with Facebook.

Just as the development of open standards allowed people to surf, email and chat using any internet service provider, I believe it is inevitable that the walls that contain our profiles, comments and media will come down - again.  In fact, I believe the cracks are already forming. Facebook is not about to suffer a precipitous decline and like AOL, it will be around for some time but I believe the seeds of its undoing are already growing in the cracks.

Our job as users of social media is to be open to the coming shift and not be trapped by our own inertia.  I think it's a very exciting time, indeed!