Have you ever wondered how life would have been without Facebook or Twitter? Horrible isn’t it? Many of our elders have actually experienced it. No I am not talking about an age without social media but an age when Facebook and Twitter did not exist. They did find other means to be socially alive
Let’s take a peep into some of their favorite social networking sites then and find out whether old was really gold.
Which are the Dead Social Networking Sites?
Friendster
Who doesn’t like playing games? Now Friendster is a social gaming site but originally it was a social networking service website. This website like any other social networking sites enabled the users to maintain contacts, share online contacts, videos and pictures.
Wonder how your uncle met your aunt online then? Friendster might have given them the platform for their love to blossom. This site also resembled an online dating service. It was one among the most crowded website then but due to certain technical glitches the website drowned and later transformed itself into a gaming site.
MySpace
This site focused more on music. The main feature of this site was that it allowed the users to post bulletins. Bulletins were nothing but post posted on the bulletin board which could be seen by everybody for the next 10 days. It also enabled the users to create groups, share common page and message each other.
From 2005 to 2008 MySpace was one of the largest social networking sites in the world but with Facebook overtaking the site many of the teens and the users migrated to Facebook, leaving MySpace as a ghost house behind.
Classmates
The main idea of social media is to enable people to keep in touch and when it is about our classmates, who wouldn’t like to keep in touch with them?
With its nostalgic content, classmates was successful in driving traffic to some extent.
It included event planning tools which helped the users to create invitations for get-together and reunions but with Facebook coming into the picture users chose to keep in touch with the world rather than limiting their contact list to just their classmates.
Open Diary
Almost all of us have the habit of writing diary and many of us like to keep it as ‘my private thing’. Open diary was an online social diary where uses create diary which are either public, private or friends only. Here the users could create their profiles and publish unlimited entries in their diaries.
It contained the diary circle where similar nature entries were posted together. It also enabled the users to search for their favorite diarist and comment on each other’s diaries. But due to lack of funds open diary soon bid farewell to its users.
Stickam
Stickam is another example for a ‘resting in peace’ website.
‘Turn on, Tune in, Go live’
The website allowed the users to broadcast live videos and also enabled its followers to log into their chat room using Facebook, twitter, tumbler or LinkedIn. The VIP program of this site gave users ad-free usage. Coming to the social features of Stickam it gave the users the platform to instantly connect with random people all over the world.
The site also provided features like video chatting, group chat rooms and enabled the users to also purchase advertising space. In 2014 Stickam with its suicidal note, “Thank you and farewell” disappeared from the social media.
Orkut
This is where my brother found his match. Orkut was another social networking site that was owned by Google. Orkut was one of the popular sites among the teenagers then. Here the users could not only be in touch with their old friends but also make new ones online. Orkut enabled chatting and file sharing.
Similar to Facebook here users also had the option ‘LIKE’ to show others what they are interested in. Apart from this, here you could also become a fan of any other friends and rate your friends as trustworthy, cool, or sexy. Orkut was more of a dating website. Here the members could add any other users name on their ‘crush list’.
Unlike Facebook, Orkut enabled any random users to visit your profile. On 2014 Google announced the shutting down of Orkut making it a part of the history of social media.
Over to you.
Well, now you must have got the idea that social media is not all about twitter or Facebook. There are many other websites which are or were a part of it.
