The Internet is amongst the most significant inventions in history, right alongside the wheel and other such classics. Alexander Graham Bell may have foreseen this future when he invented the phone to connect people, but he could never have conceived the future it has led to. Social Media is growing in force, recognition and usefulness, but before we showcase the latest happenings in this brave new world, and some popular predictions for its future, we feel it best to start at the beginning and re-introduce the first ever social network - the internet itself…

Instead of going into the library to fish out tons of books related to the creation of the internet, Melih Bilgil created an amazing animated video that was brought to our attention by Read Write Web that provides us with an easy to understand history of the internet:

History of the internet is an animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to file-sharing, from arpanet to internet. The video uses a new type of info-graphic called PICOL icons , which will soon be made available for free on picol.org . PICOL stands for Pictorial Communication Language - it’s a project that aims to create “a standard and reduced sign system for electronic communication.” PICOL is free to use and open to alter.

With the invention of the internet, people are connected to eachother so much more in the concept of indirect social communication. One of the biggest impact felt recently as a result of such connective force, is Facebook, where Mashable recently revealed these startling statistics:

Back in August 2008, Mark Zuckerberg posted on the official Facebook blog that Facebook had reached 100 million users . Now, only 4 months later, this number has grown 50%: Facebook now has 150 million users, and, these are active users we’re talking about. How they determine this number at Facebook is unknown to me, but it probably means that users who’ve just created an account which sits idle for a long period of time aren’t included. This is huge; Facebook is growing incredibly fast, and at this pace it will will reach 300 million users by the end of 2009.

With this in mind, Webware reported that Burger King are trying something different on Facebook, encouraging people to delete 10 of their friends from their network in order to get a free burger as part of the Burger King Whopper Sacrifice campaign:

Burger King has put out some interesting campaigns as of late, but this one piques our interest because of how gleefully it pokes fun at our social-networking obsessions. “Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test,” the Whopper Sacrifice site explains. “Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we’ll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice ten of your friends.

The funniest part: The “sacrifices” show up in your activity feed. So it’ll say, for example, “Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper.” Unfortunately, you can’t delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.

In other Facebook news, there is now a way to get anyone drunk - minus the hangover, through donations disguised as beverages. CNet takes a look into this new wave of Social-e-Commerce:

The concept is, in theory, very similar to start-ups like buyyourfriendadrink.com . But services like that are only compatible with participating bars, and Give Real has found a workaround that will make its gifting service compatible with any bar that accepts credit cards. You opt to send a drink to a friend, your credit card gets charged, your friend chooses to accept the payment, and his or her credit card will be credited for that amount of cash when a purchase at an establishment considered a bar, restaurant, or cafe is made.

With Facebook’s developer platform now running relatively smooth, and the launch of their new connect initiate, Ruhani Rabin demonstrates exactly how and why we should connect:

Seamlessly “connect” their Facebook account and information with your site, Connect and find their friends who also use your site, Share information and actions on your site with their friends on Facebook, Have Trusted secure authentication via Facebook, Provide Real Identity, Link their friends with your site, and Distribute your site throughout social networks!

Like all inventions, it has its benefits and disadvantages, where Sexy Widget posted a very informative article concerning the Pros and Cons of Facebook Connect.

By easing registration requirements, offering increased distribution, and solving for what to do with a new user with no friends, Facebook has come up with three very compelling arguments for online communities to take Facebook Connect for a spin.  The distribution piece in particular is brilliant - it makes Facebook both a Federator by distributing its registration system AND an Aggregator, by pulling in Internet wide activity into a central newsfeed.  It’s also classic hub & spoke strategy .  Facebook is telling us site owners that they will trade us traffic for distribution of their registration system.  For all of Google’s might, their lack of a central newsfeed limits the ability for Google Friend Connect to drive you traffic.

It’s not only commercial businesses such as Burger King that are turning to Social-Media - even the latest American president see’s benefits:

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA ADDRESSING THE NATION WEEKLY ON YOUTUBE
Some politicians tend to avoid transparency but newly President-Elect Barack Obama uses YouTube to reach out to the entire nation, as discovered by Read Write Web.

Some people are already saying that posting to YouTube is just the strategy of the week for pandering to young people. They point out that Obama’s account on Twitter, almost the most popular account on the service, has been dead silent since the election ended. Posting to YouTube is different though. It’s repurposing media, cross posting it, it’s simple. The Obama campaign has already posted almost 2000 videos to its YouTube account.

Few traditional media companies are embracing Social Media, unlike the New York Times, who utilize online social networking to circulate stories:

The social network is intended for you to recommend articles to your friends, share reviews for shows or movies and track comments left by your friend on various articles of the online version of the newspaper.

CONCLUDING PREDICTIONS AND DESIRES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA FOR THE YEAR 2009
Read Write Web made some initial predictions as to what social media had to offer in the year 2009

Over the course of the past year, we found ourselves drawn to the apps, services, and features that helped us better organize the madness that is information overload. We added our friends to lists in both FriendFeed and Tweet Deck, we categorized our RSS feeds and even cleared out some for good, we de-friended the strangers we had collected on Facebook, we synced our social network friend lists, and we found ways to multi-post to our preferred networks. Yes, we became more efficient..but there’s still so much room for improvement. We want Google Reader add-ons, better friend synchronization tools - not to mention friend list sanitizers!

There’s certainly no concrete way of telling what the next technological evolutionary step for mankind could be. As they say, the human mind has no limits, and nor does NI-Limits!