Social Media – My View on – Social Media Sharing (Flickr, YouTube, Pinterest)

Social Media Sharing is a term some people split up into different areas – Photo Sharing, Video Sharing, and Audio Sharing to a website and people worldwide access those websites. Most people know they share these but don’t realize that it actual has a name for the overall group. In recent times, you can now tell others over your social networks when you like or comment, or share the item.

History & Types

In the 1990’s, you could share pictures via email (even though it was a bit tricky with those hand held scanners!)  then it moved to blogs and webpages. In 1994, Geocities had just been created and was the first social media site. Our experience was in 1996, when we first had our webpage.  At that point, my husband put pictures up, but people couldn’t comment, like or share them. I believe this is when Social Media Sharing was just beginning as many people didn’t have access to it and all changes or additions had to be done by hand. After we married, I started to update our website to include pictures of us, our families and vacations. However, this took time and it started to get out dated pretty quickly.

Live Streaming

During 1995, live streaming started, and people could watch things live online instead of waiting until someone uploaded them onto a service. However, the big IT players, Microsoft and Apple both developed players for the streaming, so everyone could listen if they had them.

I have to admit; we did try and use Live Streaming when it came out as our household loves anything to do with NASA. However, between our connection, 56K, and so many people trying to access the page, it became increasingly difficult to use once people started to realize what you could get access to with live streaming. This was a great idea, but you definitely need the patience and bandwidth to use this online media.

Online Video Platforms started – Shareyourworld

In 1997, the first online video hosting platform, shareyourworld.com, was available to upload either clips or full videos. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long because of budget and space problems. As we all know, money is what makes the world go around and the world stopped for this platform in 2001. I have heard that some say that online videos started with the porn industry. That could be, but I don’t have any proof that I have seen to support this.

Like the live streaming, we did upload snippets of videos that we took on our vacations or holidays. However, with the 56K modem, it would take such a long time to upload the video; we eventually said that we would do it later once our internet connection was upgraded. I believe that many people had done the same thing back then.

Photo Sharing Websites

Then towards the end of 1999 and into 2000, people were slowing getting into having digital cameras, phones with cameras and video recorders or camcorders which could be transferred and uploaded onto the net or websites.  And by 2000, people were more acceptable of having devices which could do all of this; however, websites or these types of services were just starting to become common place. The earliest photo sharing sites were Webshots, SmugMug, Yahoo! Photos, Shutterfly and Flickr. I know we started to use Yahoo Photos from about 1999, because it was easier to upload a set of pictures, type in a small caption (called photo management systems) and let the computer handle it while you were out of the room. Along with digital cameras, you had the invention of memory cards which could be shared between cameras and computers. Even better was that it was very easy so anyone that had a camera could do it without having to contact an IT person.  Further, the use of video with animation that were online to send political messages were used.

As I stated earlier, we did share our pictures; however it was difficult and time consuming we stopped. However, with the management systems that started to become common place, we started to share more because it was easier and it didn’t take as long either. That being said, we only put up online only a small amount of what we had because it still wasn’t the best use of our time.

By 2002, digital had overtaken analogue with storage devices. From there photos just exploded over the internet. During this time you had partnerships between social sites and photo sharing sites and it wasn’t until a few years later, about 2004 if my memory serves me right, that the photo sharing sites were starting to be bought out by the social sites.  Because of this, we stopped uploading our files because terms and conditions were changing like the wind. We were not sure who was doing what with our information. However, once everything stabilized again, we were uploading once again. In the last few years, we’ve started to use our Flickr pages to capture our lives again. My husband, who is a hobbyist photographer, is regularly on his Flickr page.

Waiting at the Tram Stop in Melbourne.

I, on the other hand, usually wait until I have something interesting to add to mine, because I take pictures every now and then. Besides, how many times do people really want to see our dog, Buddy, right?

YouTube

YouTube

By 2005, YouTube, started to be accessed and people could view, upload and share their videos. As we all know, this has been modified and upgraded to fit with our everyday life and this includes on our mobile and tablet devices.

Our household has had our YouTube accounts since 2007. We used to go and watch many videos in a few different places, but by 2007, there were interesting channels to watch and view. We have only uploaded a few videos because usually we mostly do things in pictures.  My YouTube account, if you’re interested is found here.

By 2007, Photo Sharing and social networking were together intimately, and they were both going mobile with the inventions like the iPhone.  Social Networking sites have integrated the photo sharing concept into their applications. That being said, the photo sharing sites have also incorporated feedback, sharing buttons and tags, so people can share the photos , and in turn their sharing sites, in social networking sites. It’s a mad little circle, but it works.

 Pinterest

Then in 2009, Pinterest was created and started to trade in 2010. This allowed people to go around and pin or choose any interests the user might have. Then it allows the user to put a board together with like subject matter. Once someone likes someone’s board, they can follow them to keep track of what they are currently putting on their site. In December 2011, it had become one of the top 10 largest sites of social media according to Hitwise.

Recently I’ve joined Pinterest. I can see certain values in having an account, but I cannot see me, once I get my account full set up, spending hours of the day on it. I do like the value where I can put my hobbies on this platform and then use that on a webpage, which is what I will be doing once I get it set up. That way, I just have to link my board or boards up to the website, which then once I pin something will reflect on our webpage.

In 2013, there has been a Video Share Review for the top 10. If you are curious to see who made or didn’t make the list click on this link.

Television and video

In the past 2-3 years, television channels that have videos and apps out to view videos and talk about what’s going on during a television show. This technology has been around for about 2 to 3 years in Australia. These will be covered in a later blog about Social TV.

In closing, as you can see, social media sharing has been around for over 10 years now. It started slowly, but once things started to integrate with everything else that’s social media, it took off. People are using these sites without even knowing that they are using them or what kind of sites they really are. They just know that they like the sites and they are easy to use.

I agree with how easy and useful these types of social media are, as you can see by the amount of accounts we have and had in the past.  I haven’t spoken about is the downside of this type of social media – the misuse of it.  I have slated a future blog post to this topic.