Sharing for the Rest of Us
(pre-copyedit version)
Cowboy capitalism took over the initial period of the Web's mainstream explosion, but it wasn't long before human drive to connect and share rose out of the ashes of the dot-com boom/bust.
Despite the fact that there were technological hurdles preventing everyday people being able to publish and participate on the Web early on, market forces allowed people with capital and resources to jump right in. If you personally didn't have the skills to create Web pages and maintain a server, or didn’t belong to those networks that had access to the Internet, you could simply purchase a server, hire a few nerds and head on down the merry way toward the Wild West of the Internet.
The people who were willing, in the early days, to risk spending that kind of money were investors who either saw the light or knew they could make their money back. Soon, those folks with the cash began driving the development of services available on the Web, in an effort to maximize the return on their investment. The Web, during that time, became less about people sharing information with one another (how can you make money on that?), and more about creating ways for people to buy and sell products to each other.
The Web became a commercial paradise, a capitalist's dream. While there were still plenty of people working on more social applications — forums come to mind — the cultural focus, as is wont to happen, shifted toward buying and selling products. It took less money and less know-how to sell on the Web than it did to set up a brick-and-mortar business, but it certainly took some. Which was way more than most had.
Lo and behold, in 2000 bubbles burst, and the dot-com boom ended a few years into its silliness. Note that the Internet didn't pack itself up and wander off; innovation and a dedication to refining applications continued. What emerged out of those ashes was, in many ways, a return to the original ethos of the Web: making it easy for people to share information.
One of the more well-known products/services to come out of this drive was blog software. In 1999 and 2000, some technologically inclined people started to realize that manually updating their web pages was kind of a drag, and developers (like Evan Williams of Blogger and the guys behind LiveJournal) started producing software that would simplify the process. "Weblog" first came into use in 1997, and though shortened to "blog" as sort of a joke, Williams popularized the term with his Blogger software. Soon enough, people gained the ability to share and publish their experiences and opinions without a lot of technical know-how.
Progressive activists started using early Web technologies to share stories not being covered in mainstream, traditional media. In response to the desire to offer alternative news reportage about the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999, a group of media activists founded the first Independent Media Center (IMC). Anyone in the IMC model could publish and share news stories; the idea caught on in other cities worldwide following the protests, and a large decentralized network of IMCs formed in the following years.
Also in the late 1990s, basic social networks were launched. One of the most prominent was Classmates.com (which is still around), while one of my favorites, SixDegrees.com, went defunct in the bubble. SixDegrees was particularly revolutionary because it allowed you to look for other members and see how you were connected to them… very Kevin Bacon. Many websites started adding social networking features such as the ability to add friends and share links and content with them.
By the early 2000s, sites whose main function was social networking started to spring up… who here remembers Friendster? MySpace, hi5, Xanga, Facebook, Ning all followed shortly thereafter, not to mention more informal social networks that have been created around content-sharing sites like YouTube (video sharing), Flickr (picture sharing), and Delicious (bookmark sharing). Mobile technologies had also matured to a point where SMS texting became fairly common in many demographics, as well as surfing the web via cellphones. When Twitter took the tech elite by storm at the SXSW Interactive conference in 2007, social networks were granted staying power. The seeds of change had been firmly planted into the culture.
