It’s 1994 again. MySpace Is The New AOL

January 31st, 2008

I remember the early days of the internet, when you had to have a service like prodigy or AOL or compuserve to get online. For me, those didn’t last long. As soon as I could get my own dial up, I did. Hell, I remember friends stopping by to use my super fast 28.8 modem to download stuff. Ahh.. those were the days.

Anyway, I also remember the revolution. The day when we discovered ICQ and AIM and ditched email for instant messaging. IM made a lot more sense - we didn’t have to wait for a response, and we were able to have a conversation with people when THEY felt like talking.

It was also great because IM didn’t come with chain letters or annoying spam (at least, not until AOHell and FateX came out.)

Today though, it looks like teens are taking another step. When I was in Dallas I noticed that my 16 year old cousin and her friends spent all day in the living room on their laptops. I also noticed that they didn’t use any email or instant messaging programs - only MySpace and Facebook.

When I asked about it, they told me that there’s no need for email or IM since all their friends are on MySpace anyway. If they’re online, they’re logged in and chat through there.

Are IM programs about to be obsolete? I doubt it, but it’s an intriguing trend among today’s teens. Personally I think it’s a step backwords, but what do I know? Knowing what ICQ and IRC are make me an internet geezer.

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