> "Being someone that was alive long before Facebook got big I can assure you this statement is wrong."
Funny, you seem to know a lot about the experiences of myself and my friends - all of whom predate Facebook by a pretty wide margin.
This reminds me of the age-old and tired argument that Apple wasn't first to the smartphone game, as if that somehow robs their accomplishment of any weight. LJ never transcended being a niche online community, FriendFeed is a footnote, Friendster was well-known but not widely used... The only social network that had any real claim to popularity in your list is MySpace, and it was steamrolled by Facebook so quickly I'm sure their heads are still spinning.
Likewise, Nokia was first - but does it matter? "Smartphone" didn't enter the common vernacular until the iPhone. The fact that similar functionality (available with much poorer relative usability) existed prior to the game-changing product is supposed to prove... what? Remember "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."? The execution of an idea is as important (no, more important) than the idea itself, and is worthy of recognition. Similarly, Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile, but he certainly was the one who brought it to the masses - and that is well worth recognition and respect.
So yeah, you're right, niche proto-social-networks existed prior to Facebook. So what? Facebook was the first mass-market social network that had any significant traction, and it remains the king of the hill. It has changed the way people interact, even if it wasn't the first to come up with the idea of it.
What's with the blithe dismissals of Facebook and Zuck-hate? This isn't a zero-sum game - there is plenty of space for Musk and Zuckerberg to both do their thing, and impact the things they will.
You can list off a bunch of failed startups that predate Facebook, but you totally ignored AOL.
AOL in many ways was the Facebook of its time. In a lot of ways people had MORE interaction using AOL instant messenger (or ICQ) than people do using the Facebook wall posts and messages combined. The major difference between Facebook and AOL is that Facebook allows you to share photos. But given the bandwidth constraints in the 90s I don't think photo sharing was viable.
If AOL had survived the broadband explosion we might not even have Facebook today. People talk about how powerful Facebook and Twitter are becuase companies are willing to put their brand after them (i.e. facebook.com/brand or @brand on twitter). But there were plenty of advertisements where people said 'AOL Keword FooBarBrand' rather than their .com address.
This is in no way a 'I Loved AOL' post, but a lot of people really dismiss its significance because of its subsequent failure.
I think this all happens in Comparison. For example try comparing something like 'sharing photos' with 'going to space'.
Sharing photos might be difficult, and it is difficult to do that at scale. But space travel is a totally different beast.
Its almost like we are in the era of Christopher Columbus or Amerigo Vespucci now. I mean its just totally a different thing. Its a whole new world to explore. And that itself if far more exciting than 'sharing photos'.
Objectively everybody does a great job. But subjectively somebody is working for a greater purpose than the other.
Is it though? I'd argue that (in my value system) Bill Gates is doing something far more boring, but far more beneficial to the world - he's curing diseases. Not sci-fi diseases, old boring ones that have existed since the dawn of humanity.
The difficulty of a task doesn't seem to correlate well with its "worth" to society - however one wants to define it.
This is why I'm not going to automatically place Musk over Zuck, because fundamentally I don't see space exploration as "better for mankind" than, say, curing diseases, revolutionizing education, or changing how people socialize. Hell, where I am in my life right now, something that helps normal, every-day people on the ground is worth more than a techno-wizardry that, while difficult and monumentally expensive, provides few benefits to the everyman.
But space exploration and colonization is as important as finding cure for diseases considering our tendency for self destruction.
Currently all humans staying on earth currently is the equivalent of putting all eggs in one basket. Just as it is important to find cure for diseases, solve the problems of hunger and improve people's lives, space colonization is important too!
What do you think could happen to the earth that would make it less habitable than Mars within the next billion years? An asteroid impact 5 times the size of the one that killed off the dinosaurs and it would still be a nicer place (assuming your not in the blast radius.) Add burning all fossil fuels, a nuclear war, a massive outbreak of Ebola, and it would still be easier to have a self sustaining habitat on earth than Mars.
Funny, you seem to know a lot about the experiences of myself and my friends - all of whom predate Facebook by a pretty wide margin.
This reminds me of the age-old and tired argument that Apple wasn't first to the smartphone game, as if that somehow robs their accomplishment of any weight. LJ never transcended being a niche online community, FriendFeed is a footnote, Friendster was well-known but not widely used... The only social network that had any real claim to popularity in your list is MySpace, and it was steamrolled by Facebook so quickly I'm sure their heads are still spinning.
Likewise, Nokia was first - but does it matter? "Smartphone" didn't enter the common vernacular until the iPhone. The fact that similar functionality (available with much poorer relative usability) existed prior to the game-changing product is supposed to prove... what? Remember "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."? The execution of an idea is as important (no, more important) than the idea itself, and is worthy of recognition. Similarly, Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile, but he certainly was the one who brought it to the masses - and that is well worth recognition and respect.
So yeah, you're right, niche proto-social-networks existed prior to Facebook. So what? Facebook was the first mass-market social network that had any significant traction, and it remains the king of the hill. It has changed the way people interact, even if it wasn't the first to come up with the idea of it.
What's with the blithe dismissals of Facebook and Zuck-hate? This isn't a zero-sum game - there is plenty of space for Musk and Zuckerberg to both do their thing, and impact the things they will.