There’s Nothing New About Social

Long before the internet, we did business with people we knew. The barber down the street. The farmer across the field. The tailor. The doctor. Everyone knew everyone else in small, close-knit communities and our reputations were the only things that mattered.

Without a solid reputation, no one would trust us and we couldn’t survive. We made deals with handshakes and believed what people told us.

Yet, here we are again and we think this is new. Old is somehow new again. Except this time, we use the internet and mobile technologies to join the revolution we now call “social media.” People have always been social, operating in tribes of who thought and acted like us. Trust was the currency and we believed our friends and family.

Check out the infographic below from copyblogger. It starts with the first email sent in 1971. But, in reality, we’ve been social since the first two people met and started doing stuff together.