Sunday, April 18, 2010

Our Connected World: From Yahoo to Twitter to...




It started with email(Yahoo, can you remember Onebox?), then chats and pen pal sites. I then moved on to yahoo groups. When Hi5 came. I thought it was the best thing that will ever happen, then Facebook proved me wrong. I was a Facebook addict. I spent hours on Facebook doing what? chatting, looking for old friends, reading friends wall, viewing pictures. I don't know why I was never on Myspace. Guess I don't have friends on the network. Now its Twitter. and the question I always ask myself is what next after twitter?
Can you imagine how a brand can change the way people do things or use their time.
Imagine a world without Facebook, twitter, Myspace... and social networking as a whole (did you say not fun?). I'm sure there would be some other things that people would do online anyways.

Lets go back in time.
Before social networks, what did we do on the Internet?
People communicate only via emails. Then the only form of social networks were pen pal sites, dating sites, etc. And you spend most time of the time online sending mails or for a research of probably chat
Now that you can even take the internet wherever u go on you mobile & laptop.
My main concern is the way social networks like Facebook & Twitter captured the hearts of people such that on the average an individual have a daily visit time of about 15 minutes to update, comment, post, send messages; tweet and retweet as in the case of twitter for hours. One question i always ask myself is how long will these sites continue to influencial and the only answer I always have is : as long as they continue to be relevant and meet people's need. Its not as if there are no other social networks and these are not the first. Other networks like Okurt, Hi5, Friendster, etc have only dominated some continents or regions (Okurt-Asia) failed to have a global significance. With this significane It has become addiction to a lot of people, Medium of advertising, hooking up, networking, social action and ultimately money making venture to the owners.
These sites have influenced the way the businesses operate.
It has become such that if your business is not on a social network, you are missing something out as long as internet presence is concerned. Businesses, Corporations, organisations, Celebrities and Individuals all build their fan base and use the networks as a medium of brand communication.


So I have found this new love for twitter. There is just something about following and having followers, reading your timeline and checking checking your dms. oh I love the hash tag (#) and the @ sign and most importantly my followers.You would love to participate in interesting TTs (#lightupnigeria. #naijawomen #welcometonigeria). Lightherlamp's blog post on twitter speaks volume too
Even Google recognised the fact that twitter provides real time information.
If you are not on twitter you don't know what you are missing. ha ha.

Another question I always ask myself is where is my own Facebook or Twitter (global idea)?
Does anyone have any ideas please share. We might just build the next social network who knows. lol

Please leave a comment!
Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/9jaboyb

NBB

15 comments:

Unknown said...

Omo mehn, you just bring me back to those days ni sha. I remember Onebox baje baje. The first email I had. lol. Global idea? Hmm.. my vision is not alongside tht yet. Maybe if I have a sight of it sometime... haha

-LDP

Myne said...

I don't know about Onebox, but my first brush with the internet was through Yahoo and hotmail. I had a blog then Yahoo360 and other than that was to read newspapers and articles online. Then I later joined Hi5, myspace, then facebook and now twitter. I agree with you that these will last for a while. For now though, I think I love FB more.

Fragilelooks said...

remember d days of onebox. fastermail.etc. Fb rocks.

Adeoluwa - NBB said...

@LDP yeah onebox was it then. Our vision can be global too.

@Myne Whitman hey hotmail. how did i forget hotmail. FB rock especially with the media(pics, video, etc ) content sharing.

@Fragilelooks fastermail? never used that o. Sure FB rocks

Jennifer A. said...

I know you've been fascinated with the question of "what comes after twitter?" The truth is, like you said, it will be useful to us as long as it continues to meet people's needs (which I believe is to receive and disseminate information).

Do you know Bumight also did a post on Twitter today, she called it "Your Speech betrays you..." Lol.

Jennifer A. said...

I also had a blog with Yahoo360 and Msn Pages before moving to Blogger. Wow. Lol.

NakedSha said...

i'm the only one not active on twitter! for how long will i withstand this wind!

kay9 said...

Mmm, i never heard of Onebox. First love was yahoomail, then hotmail (where my id was wolfgang929, damn i loved it!); then yahoochat, hi5, friendster, blogspot, and finally FB. That's where i drew the line. No More! I've made up my mind never to join Twitter, n i aint about to change - guess living in Naija makes that decision kinda easy. Can't miss what i never experienced.

Spesh said...

hehehehe!
I'm yet to understand twitter...so,I guess blogger and FB are all I do :-))

Anonymous said...

lol....funnily...my myspace was doomed from the day i registered too...lol...dont even remember my login details...and hi5 was nice until the silly pop-ups...
up social networking!...i've made some connections that av bn with me for years; ppl that have become more than sisters and bros to me...chei...and in another 20yrs, our children will make fun of fbk, hi5, twitter and the rest...and they will not accept our friend request on their "new social networking page"

Adeoluwa - NBB said...

@Jaycee you are very right about my question.I never used Yahoo 360 or Msn Pages. thanks to blogger. I read Bumights post too. thanks

@NakedSha just get on it. You will understand it.but you are not the only one.

@Kay9 Onebox was a free email back then dont know what happened to it but it did not last long. Dont give up on twitter. You might just need it someday.

@My world twitter is easy to understand. The hardest part is signing up. lol

@Anonymous I know who u are. lol @ our children will not accept our friend request on the future social networking site.

Thanks everyone.

Good Naija Girl said...

Thought-provoking post! It really is amazing how much social networking has really affected our lives. I'm looking to get a smart phone so that I can be even more connected.

For me, facebook is practically passé; it's all about twitter now (though I'm not getting rid of my facebook account any time soon!). I never really got into myspace or hi5, though I did have accounts at one time. It was facebook that really changed how I felt about social networking.

And gosh, I wish I could hit upon the next big social networking idea...hehehe.

sosexy said...

Can't say much.But since I started blogging, I started loving twitter,which I've been on for almost 2years.
Nice post.

Njoki said...

Nice piece you complied. I'm not much of a twitter person...I'm still not ready to start cheating on Facebook. Most of my friends are actually there.

Maybe after twitter, it'll be my site..

Naija Entrepreneur said...

lol, I believe the next thing will be ..... I don't know. Maybe, twitter repackaged! Or better still, Naija version of Twitter! Never mind, I don't think anyone can tell for now, but it is good to wonder what the next social networking craze will be on.

Nice presentation you did. You made me recollect those old days when have a onebox was something that make you feel special among your friend because they have no email box yet.
Things are getting better. cheers.

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