I grow more amused with every “epiphany” from sudden social media experts, particularly from marketers who profess Twitter is the sacred gateway to heightened brand experience – then spam you. It’s become comical. “Experts” spend their days following hordes of people, collecting follow backs, then unfollowing people and repeating the cycle. Best of all, these “experts” are usually the first ones screaming interaction, conversation and authenticity.

Twitter’s just a tool (no pun intended)…and focusing too much on the tool completely misses the evolution from which the tool was created.

BBSes

See, long before high-speed, always-on, internet, I was holed up in my bedroom with my Tandy 286. I’d spend nights dialing into local bulletin boards on my external 2400 baud modem, thwarting call waiting with *70, and being thwarted by the ritual  connection interruption of my parents voice coming out from the modem: “Hello…hello? SEAN!! I need to use the phone!”

Those were the days of ascii art, plain text message boards, DOS and 1.5M gifs that took all night to download. Archaic? Certainly. But it wasn’t the immediate results that enamored me, it was the possibilities. 14 years old and I was reaching out into the world from the confines of my basement bedroom, even if it was just other basement bedrooms I was reaching out to.

I guess you had to be there.

Social Media Isn’t New

Social media isn’t new. BBSes were the same principles of community and communications, just with much slower infrastructure. When the prevalency of high-speed access replaced the crackle of dial-up modems, the pipes of communication expanded exponentially. Though possibilities became endless, the  “possibility” that kept me holed up so many nights with my Tandy 286 and my 2400 Baud Modem was still the same: the flow of information and limitless communication. And more importantly, how this unprecedented flow of knowledge has forever changed the fabric of civilization.

For some reason, I doubt the “expert” spending their days following and unfollowing people on twitter in order to get the most “effective” following/follower ratio quite understands that.

P.S. – for those who dabbled in BBSes,  check out this historical BBS list. Hat tip to my old high school buddy, @ofonesandzeros, for passing along the link.