What Were Your First Steps

Besides family and meatspace friends email & IM (and a very minimal and locked-down Facebook presence), all of my social networking is under psuedonyms: mainly Twitter, also FriendFeed, MySpace, a smattering of other stuff.

Other than those who are pimping themselves out for professional reasons, it amazes me how much people are willing to put out there. Decisions made lightly to make information public these days are next to impossible to reverse. I’m very interested in technology and social media, but cautious optimism is my approach.

Besides family and meatspace friends email & IM (and a very minimal and locked-down Facebook presence), all of my social networking is under psuedonyms: mainly Twitter, also FriendFeed, MySpace, a smattering of other stuff.

Other than those who are pimping themselves out for professional reasons, it amazes me how much people are willing to put out there. Decisions made lightly to make information public these days are next to impossible to reverse. I’m very interested in technology and social media, but cautious optimism is my approach.

Chris..

Great question. For me, when I first received my first email address and signed up for the net then that is when my social media experiment started.

As a student in my last year of college, I was on a few list serves sharing information on a variety of issues when it came to finding out about graduate school. I was in touch with a few people for I met up with Tayari Jones who shared with me her experiences in Iowa and her opinion of going to school there. http://www.tayarijones.com/ [this is Tayari Jones] We were introduced by Dr. Donna Akiba Harper who was our professor at Spelman college (www.spelman.edu). Dr. Harper always sent me information via email about law schools and students from my college who were in law school so I valued her opinion. [There was not a social networking community now of lawyers who were a graduate of my school but now we have one via the NING community]

I took a year off before starting law school but during that time I used the internet a lot to find out more about law school and students who went to the schools I was interested in. Further, I was hired by MSBET.com (BET’s first web site) to work with their first web site in 1996 and my first assignment was to help create a social community to help spread the word about the website.

Now with how technology has changed I am so happy for twitter and many other social communities because those layers I had to go through back then were extremely time consuming. However, now I am more focused on what I need to achieve on a daily basis. Sad thing though is trying to explain social media to many people who do not get it. Now, that is frustrating!

Great post! ;)

What were your first steps into social media?

Personally -

First Blogger blog in 2003
Facebook sometime soon after (although I didn’t use it regularly until 2005)
Flickr
YouTube
MySpace
Twitter in mid 2006
Wordpress today

Professionally -

- Being a part of the team that put David Neeleman on YouTube during that horrible weekend in February 2006

- Helping to start JetBlue’s Twitter (now being taken to great places by @MHJohnston)

Who were your early people you admired and followed?

Honestly, I blogged without a lot of knowledge of the blogosphere – it was only after I started to Twitter and reach out within NY Tech community that I met a lot of great folks.

Post Twitter-Scoble (when I first heard about him), Caroline McCarthy (new to CNET at the time, and she was awesome to introduce me to a lot of NY techies)

How did you get started?

Heard about blogs… I liked to write… off it went.

If you were going to give advice to someone starting out, what would you tell them?

Be yourself. Get involved in as many conversations as you’re comfortable with. Go to meetups and events and meet other people who share the same mindset, you’ll find vastly more good people than bad. Get on Twitter and start to follow people and listen to their views and opinions. You’ll see it become an avenue of breaking views, sites and opinions…

What will you do in the next few months with social media?

Hopefully, help to make a real go of it for MTV/Viacom ;)

Sometime in 2004, I hipped to the fact that something was blooming that might allow me to do things that’d been frustratingly out of my reach as a nonprofit web/communications guy. Dabbled here and there, reading blogs. Made the full commitment in 05, reading/participating in blogs — scoble, kathy sierra, tara hunt, techcrunch etc. Started using del.icio.us. Read “Naked Conversations” in January 06, which left me with a conviction that I had my teeth firmly sunk into an outlook that changed everything. Started my own blog round same time. Haven’t let up since.

Hmm, where did I start? It’s all a matter of how you define “social media,” as Colin and Nolan previously noted. Do I begin with my first blog, which I started in October 2003? Do I begin with Yahoo Groups/eGroups and the “modern” Usenet, which I started to use in 1998? Do I begin with the BBSes that I accessed with a 2400 bps modem back in 1991? Or do I go back to my college days, when our DEC PDP-11/70 at Reed could connect with other computers at Berkeley, Duke, and similar locations?

In terms of someone that I admired and followed and that changed my life most dramatically, I would have to nominate a BBS sysop named Starfish that I encountered in the early 1990s. I first found her on one board, then eventually joined her WWIV-based board. That’s when I first learned that social media would be social. A lot of the BBS’ers would gather and play volleyball, drink cold brown thingies, or do whatever, with a fun time had by all. Of course, in the case of the BBS crowd, we all lived in the same area, so it was easy for us to, using a 21st century term, “meetup.” Because our virtual connections are more likely to span geographical boundaries today (long distance phone charges are less of a concern), these opportunities are fewer and farther between. But there are still the occasional events (in my case, Oracle OpenWorld) where I can get together with others.

That’s enough for now…

i wrote an advice column in college and used facebook and IM to get questions from students to answer each week. then the tipping point was finding alternative media > political blogs > my own blogs > myspace > linkedin > discovering rss > twitter > enlightenment….well, maybe not that last part, but the ‘aha’ moments i get from the smart people i keep track of are life-changing.

My first online community: I used to follow the online journal of David Siegel, author of Creating Killer Web Sites, back in 1997. It would have been a blog, but there were no comments. Dave decided to start a listserv for anyone who wanted to discuss the topics he brought up in his journal, and that’s became my first online community. The list is still going, though Dave left long ago, and I would call it my internet family of origin.

Since then:
Reading blogs
Writing blogs
Commenting on other blogs
Adding connections on LinkedIn that I’m not doing much with
Still not getting Facebook
Using Flickr but not really participating
Totally getting Twitter

Best advice: what noah said about Twitter, i.e. you have to stick with it and it will make sense. Or not.

I probably need to take that advice and give Facebook another try.

My first online community: I used to follow the online journal of David Siegel, author of Creating Killer Web Sites, back in 1997. It would have been a blog, but there were no comments. Dave decided to start a listserv for anyone who wanted to discuss the topics he brought up in his journal, and that’s became my first online community. The list is still going, though Dave left long ago, and I would call it my internet family of origin.

Since then:
Reading blogs
Writing blogs
Commenting on other blogs
Adding connections on LinkedIn that I’m not doing much with
Still not getting Facebook
Using Flickr but not really participating
Totally getting Twitter

Best advice: what noah said about Twitter, i.e. you have to stick with it and it will make sense. Or not.

I probably need to take that advice and give Facebook another try.

Chris:

I’ve always used the dive in approach too and highly recommend it ….

I would also recommend starting small with small experiments and gradually build.

My first experience into social media was a BBS for disability rights and support groups called Project Enable back in 1988 via fidonet. It reminds of Twitter – you could love on – and get “just in time” answers. Well, in those days, “just in time” was 1 day – because the packets would be distributed to other bbs. I was using the BBS to post questions or share resources to help with a local support group.

Then I discovered the Internet a couple years later – and was the community builder for Arts Wire – an online network for artists with unix-based text system called Caucus.
here’s a description from an archived web page http://tinyurl.com/5f225j

At the same time I discovered places like the Well, ECHO (east coast hangout) and Meta Network (where arts wire has hosted). Those places were all about conversations – like what we’re doing here in the comments.

Also at this time I discovered the gopher – remember the gopher? You could sit down with a beer in hand and literally visit every server on the web via Cern. I was self-described gopher mistress .. I organized the Arts Wire gopher – this is was about early aggregation!

My career as a gopher mistress was very short-lived because a guy in Switzerland and something called mosaic .. the question “world wide what?” was asked by many. Remember the blink tag?

I volunteered to be the Dance Cybrian — sort of like a wiki on the cern server where anyone could volunteer to aggregate links in their field. I aggregated web sites for dance groups, dance companies, etc. In the beginning, mostly unix programmers who liked to clog dance – and come by and criticize my code.

I started Spiderschool – which was a link list I created on how to create web pages. Later, I used to summarize the wisdom that came out of the community discussion related to how artists and arts organizations can use the web …
Later, as more and more people created web pages – I hand facilitated comments – my first crowd sourced piece was getting people to help me proof read my pages –
The Typo Police Page
http://www.bethkanter.org/spiderpolice/police.html
Note the blink tag!

In 1996, when the first digital cameras and web cams out – I got one. I used my webcam attached my laptop as my first digital camera to record photos from a conference that I was taking notes for – and then publishing as web pages .. ha live blogging and video blogging.

Also around that time, I discovered what would now be called sessmic or perhaps qik — you could use your webcam and go “reflector surfing” – it was chat room with video. Here’s a story from that era
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2006/10/a_conversation_.html

So, when blogging software came out – I was so excited because a) I didn’t have hand code 2.) the conversations could happen right there on the post.

I blathered on too long – thanks for the trip down memory lane

My first steps in social media was writiing on walls 1980′s

http://tinyurl.com/5l97dp

I started with social media or maybe what was just called simply “Web2.0″ stuff back in Septemberish 2003. Really I started with blogging and moblogging.

I first used iBlog linked to .Mac for blogging and mobile photo blogging on textamerica. Both of these services are gone now, one cancelled, one doesn’t exist anymore. I was an early adopter of MySpace etc.

I can’t really point to any one person that inspired me to do this or guided me at that time. I was just figuring stuff out for myself and joining communities.

How did I get started? Like any of this, just do it and share your stuff.

Advice to new folks? Start a blog. Get on twitter. Do some mobile photo / video sharing. Say something. And soon enough you’ll be plugged in. You’ll attract people of interest.

What would I like to see? Hmm. More social media outreach or education or sharing, like this, to grow community and help people get plugged in. Lots of folks are still asking what is this? and how do I do it or get involved.

I started with social media or maybe what was just called simply “Web2.0″ stuff back in Septemberish 2003. Really I started with blogging and moblogging.

I first used iBlog linked to .Mac for blogging and mobile photo blogging on textamerica. Both of these services are gone now, one cancelled, one doesn’t exist anymore. I was an early adopter of MySpace etc.

I can’t really point to any one person that inspired me to do this or guided me at that time. I was just figuring stuff out for myself and joining communities.

How did I get started? Like any of this, just do it and share your stuff.

Advice to new folks? Start a blog. Get on twitter. Do some mobile photo / video sharing. Say something. And soon enough you’ll be plugged in. You’ll attract people of interest.

What would I like to see? Hmm. More social media outreach or education or sharing, like this, to grow community and help people get plugged in. Lots of folks are still asking what is this? and how do I do it or get involved.

Started a blog about creaetive marketing in association world; joined Facebook; joined LinkedIn; started a videoblog; first blog focused more on social media, innovation, strategic imagination. Became an early adopter for everything web 2.0 and 3.0

People I admired and followed early? That would be you, Chris my dear! And Jeff de Cagna, Ben Martin, Jamie Notter, Dave Sabol, Matt Baehr in the association blogosphere.

Just started with the blog and it quickly became part of me.

I’d tell someone starting to just jump in and try it. Learn by doing. Don’t be scared.

In next few months – expand a new Facebook /LinkedIn group I started (YAP), beta test a hosted social network for my association, beta test lots of stuff for myself (Twine, BrightKite, etc), keep writing about how to beridge the gap between us early adopters and the association industry old guard, keep learning, keep conversing, keep meeting new people.

Started a blog about creaetive marketing in association world; joined Facebook; joined LinkedIn; started a videoblog; first blog focused more on social media, innovation, strategic imagination. Became an early adopter for everything web 2.0 and 3.0

People I admired and followed early? That would be you, Chris my dear! And Jeff de Cagna, Ben Martin, Jamie Notter, Dave Sabol, Matt Baehr in the association blogosphere.

Just started with the blog and it quickly became part of me.

I’d tell someone starting to just jump in and try it. Learn by doing. Don’t be scared.

In next few months – expand a new Facebook /LinkedIn group I started (YAP), beta test a hosted social network for my association, beta test lots of stuff for myself (Twine, BrightKite, etc), keep writing about how to beridge the gap between us early adopters and the association industry old guard, keep learning, keep conversing, keep meeting new people.

Chris – I can’t remember my first steps! It was that long ago… My advice for someone first starting out, definitely research the social sharing sites that make most sense to them individually instead of joining (and subsequently) abandoning a bunch until you decide which ones you like best. The work to develop both your online personality and what niche you are most interested in/know the most about so that you can contribute to the communities in which you belong. That is something I wish I could redo.

Chris – I can’t remember my first steps! It was that long ago… My advice for someone first starting out, definitely research the social sharing sites that make most sense to them individually instead of joining (and subsequently) abandoning a bunch until you decide which ones you like best. The work to develop both your online personality and what niche you are most interested in/know the most about so that you can contribute to the communities in which you belong. That is something I wish I could redo.

Hi Chris,

It’s fabulous that your blog post here shows such interest in others. That’s very generous and a great example that others (especially those new to social media) should immulate. I admire your knowledge and style greatly.

My first steps into social media were back in the spring of 1996 when I bought my first PC. I stumbled upon (no pun intended) the Virtual University. Classes were taught by volunteers. I proposed a class on teaching Netscape Navigator and included how to build home pages with it. This was actually before I knew much about it. I ended up with 1259 students in my first class and I learned what I needed to know (and then some) very fast.

It’s difficult to remember the people I followed back then, but Jay Abraham was one, and later Seth Godin became a huge influence, still is.

The Virtual U activities included chat rooms and bulletin boards, mostly with my students. I became enthralled with the ability to interact in real time with people from all over the world. Since then, of course, social media has evolved exponentially and it’s become the number one interest of my online life and business.

My advice would echo what some people have already said here — you can’t really relate to what’s happening until you get involved. However, I think that learning about it comes first. Read about and observe it first, learn what is acceptable and what’s not.

What I’ll do with social media in the future is my favorite question here because I’ve just signed a contract to lead the web strategy for a corporation to include social media in a large way. It’s almost the “Virtual-U-jump-in-and-just-do-it” excitement all over again. I have a lot to learn but my involvement at twitter, digg, stumbleupon, blogs and such is giving me a fast-start with my education.

For anyone hesitant to get involved in social media I say, put your fears aside, know that contribution is what is most important, and come join us!

With much respect,

Deb (mywebgal)

My first steps in social media? Since I consider IMs and IRC to be social media, I’d have to start there. If you’re wondering about the “new” social media, then blogs and MySpace would have to come next (though, I’ve killed my MySpace account for security reasons – aka, spam).

The first blog I ever followed wasn’t even a blog, per se, since the term hadn’t been coined yet. Steve Jackson’s Daily Illuminator has been running since November 1994, and may just be the longest running, consistently updated, “blog” on the internet. LINK: http://www.sjgames.com/ill/

I got started for work reasons – the need to keep in touch with business partners and potential clients. Most of the work I have gotten over the last decade came directly, or indirectly, from relationships I developed through social media.

My advice would be to realize that each social media tool can be used to support the rest. Don’t look at them as individual entities, but as complimentary elements that (can) work together to make a powerful tool-box.

Over the next few months, I’ll be working to streamline my online presence. I need to learn more about the newer SM tools, so that I can properly use them. The newer tools have a lot of potential, but only if used properly.

So it looks like I might be the first (perhaps only) person here who will state Yahoo 360 as their entry into social media. I’m not going to include listservs and vax vms systems from college years.

I started blogging at 360 because we were starting to investigate community features for IBM developerWorks. Figured an immersive experience would educate me the most.

So not counting email and IM, the journey was:

Yahoo 360
Sulekha (niche site for South Asians)
MySpace for my music stuff (hate the experience)
YouTube
Flickr

The latest is that I am brenny on twitter and I can see myself getting addicted very quickly.

Who do I read and follow?
Marc Andreeson
Chris Anderson
Jason Calakanis
Rohit Bhargava
Guy Kawasaki

Depending on what they are going to do my advice to newbies would be different.
To somebody who wants to become a web presence/celebrity I would say follow the winners (a few are listed above)

For those who are motivated by self expression I would recommend it highly. It can be cathartic and you’ll be amazed at who you find.

What do I plan to do in the next 3 months?
I plan to grow my twitter network, establish an external work related blog, write more, and venture into rich media with some podcasts and video stuff (which I’m still pondering).

Great comments post. This feedback you got here constitutes a survey of sorts. Good stuff. Learned a lot.

my first steps in social media was to put up my blog. The problem I had with it, and why it slowed me down from becoming an expert at blogging was I outsourced it to an overseas company in the Phillipines. That was the wrong move because I never became fully engaged with my blog and my blog readers.

Since then I’ve built my podcast blog myself, plus a private members blog. So I’m catching up in that arena.

Then I put up a myspace page.

Then I put up a facebook page, plus linked in.

But it wasn’t till Twitter that I really got hooked on social media.

Twitter, cause it’s so fun and easy to do, got me more connected than facebook.

my advice to someone getting started is to start doing it, and not worry at first if you have subscribers or not. The process of doing helps you understand.

-Christina Hills
“The Shopping Cart Queen”

What were your first steps into social media?
A- Social media, isn’t really just “the web”? Maybe I am simplifying to much? I like to refer to it as “the web” My first steps into the web was an HTML class in 1996. Had no clue what it was or what it meant. I was just a hockey playing jock looking for a bird course.

Fast forward to the year 2000, as I was playing hockey in Shreveport, LA, I didn’t even know how to email or set up an email account. All I did was logon to my computer at my apartment, go on AOL (what was I thinking?) and then cruise around iWon.com. Do you remember iWon? You could win money for surfing and I think I recently read that iWon is trying to make a comeback. That was it… that is all I knew.

Who were your early people you admired and followed?
A- First individual that helped create awareness around this new web was Michael Arrington at TechCrunch

How did you get started?
A- My brother Adrian and I started a web development company in 2001 and we built our first web based product for hockey coaches. From there our company has evolved with the web to offer products and services to our customers.

If you were going to give advice to someone starting out, what would you tell them?
A- “The web” is not a scary place and it is one of the easiest things to learn on your own. There are so many things you can practice with and try out, and nobody gets hurt. :-) So for all of those out there that think the web is to hard to figure out for their business or personal lives, I think I am proof in the pudding. All it takes is to go to one of the many free, social websites out there and sign up for an account and have fun. Who knows, you might even start your own web company.

Thanks Chris, your post convinced me to finally launch my blog. I’m so excited about getting started knowing that my digital real estate is going to grow and evolve the more I participate.

To answer your questions (if only I knew how to pingback).

What were your first steps into social media?
Likely Yahoo Groups and forums. More recently Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Who were your early people you admired and followed?
Chris Brogan, One Degree, Sean Moffitt., Chris Clarke, Beth Kanter and so many others

How did you get started?
In the past two years I have joined different networks and communities, spent lots of time lurking, and just started to get more involved. Actively participating in social media on behalf of clients has taught me so much in a very short time

If you were going to give advice to someone starting out, what would you tell them?
There is no model and everyone does it differently. I am a strong believer that to to truly understand the power of social media marketing you have to do it.

What will you do in the next few months with social media?
I’m going to get more involved and learn by doing. I’m helping to organize a barcamp in a county with a creative rural economy (more details to come).

What were your first steps into social media?

I started blogging as a sophomore in high school around the year 2000 and didn’t really keep up with it and wrote very sporadically. When I went to college my writing interests really increased and I realized I enjoyed and blogging gave me an easy way to publish my stuff. I am also in the age group that got Facebook first and that was a big eye opening time for me in experiencing social media. Now I Twitter, Digg, Blog, Facebook, Myspace everything and I like the blogosphere I am in with movies.

Who were your early people you admired and followed?

I didn’t really have any. Didn’t know of any major movie bloggers or I didn’t pay attention. Recently as my blog has changed in the past 12 months, Geeks of Doom, the Movie Blog and SlashFilm have become major supporters and help to our site. Geeks of Doom are probably the best blog friends we could have.

How did you get started?

College, like I mentioned before this is when my movie blogging interests hit.

If you were going to give advice to someone starting out, what would you tell them?

Have fun! Do not make it work. Blogging is fun and the rest comes with it. You can learn a lot about social technology on the way that could help you in your job and how you interact with people.

What will you do in the next few months with social media?

Continue to see it involved and see how I can incorporate it into my site as well as my life.