Same Script, Different Cast: How Social Networking Can Learn From E-mail

Then, slowly they opened up and allowed their members to send messages outside their service. This was a huge win for users, even though they had to give up some of their fancy features in favor of the “lowest common denominator” solution.

Jump forward 20 years, and we see striking similarities between the e-mail of then and the social networks of now. Now it’s Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn instead of AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy. Originally closed networks, all three have opened up more and more to messaging with outside users.