The beginning of email begun in the 1970’s, and although it was a rudimentary system, it laid the groundwork for today’s email. Email as we know it had its beginning in the 1980’s and has only improved since then.
Photo and Video Sharing
Photo sharing began by services providing ordering prints online in the late 1990’s, and then sites set up specifically for photo and video sharing began in the early 2000’s. These sites provided basic sharing, but slowly added features until they became what we have today.
SMS and IM
Short Message Service, or text messaging, was created in the 1980’s, and the first SMS message was sent from a computer to a mobile phone in 1992. IM as we know it began in the 1990’s, but really exploded in popularity in 1996.
Blogs and Social Networks
Blogs began in 1994 as Personal Webpages. They were not called “weblogs” until 1997, and became “blog” in 1999. Very basic and rudimentary versions of social networks began with the internet, but did not take off until the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.