I’m not a social networking addict. But I play around with it, to see what is going on. (I figure, if nothing else, I can turn my page on Facebook into a free brochure for my freelance writing business.)

The ability to serve the self-assessed needs of consumers can be a quite powerful force. I had an account on the Internet before it was the Internet. It was ARPA.NET. The old-timers back then told me that ARPA.NET was just a new name and a minor technical upgrade to MIL.NET (both live on, largely unnoticed within the body of the Internet (almost INTER.NET). This was military stuff, long ago and far away.

(The world isn’t a safer place because I took a few paychecks from the Army. But I’m a safer guy because I don’t work for those guys anymore.)

You may have noticed an online employment service on the internet that lives on today as “Monster.” Ever wonder about the name? Regardless of what anybody may tell you, it dates back to a time before the Internet or even ARPA.NET or even MIL.NET when text-only message boards were accessed via 300 BAUD dial-up modems on voice grade phone lines.

(Sounds awful? Compare it to calling people on the phone for job leads and writing all of the information down with a pen by hand.)

Commercial message boards negotiated local (free) dial-up numbers all over the US, so prospective customers could afford to use them. Some companies bundled these local dial-up numbers and sold time on them as private networks to nationwide companies, the text-only message boards. (The Official Airline Guide was a pre-Internet adopter of text-only dial-up networking on voice-grade lines.)

There was an employment job board that grew and grew and grew. Eventually people were calling it “a real monster” of a message board. It became Monster Board. I believe it kept the “Board” in the name for quite a while after the Internet arrived.

Today, we can see the Internet was seemingly “born” for services like Monster/Monster Board.

But in this case, the value to the user literally forced the development of a new networking technology parallel to the Internet. (The Internet was better. So the content gravitated there, when it was technically possible.)

Social networking was also a part of text-only message boards in those days. I don’t know much about that part because back then I needed a job more than I needed shoulder to cry on. Social networking lives on, in quiet obscurity, on the Internet in the form of Usenet newsgroups. (Well, okay, not just social networking. Also pornography, drugs, stupid weight loss products, Nazi memorabilia, UFO maps, conspiracy books, stock tips, you name it.)

Perceived value to the consumer (as perceived BY the consumer) is the steam that drives the “choo-choo” train of interaction on the Internet. And the only way to fire the boiler is to keep stoking it with new ideas, start-ups, roll-outs, innovations, upgrades, etc. No rest for the weary in this game.

REG CROWDER

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/Blogs/UserBlogs.aspx?UserID=6304

http://www.journalistdirectory.com/journalist/TgTQ/REG-CROWDER