Social media? That’s all Twitter and Facebook, right? And didn’t it start in the last few years?

Not so. Despite appearances, the history of social media traces back as far as the late 1970s, when computer hobbyists Ward Christensen and Randy Suess invented the bulletin board system (BBS). The launch of the Mosaic web browser in 1993 gave birth to the world wide web, and from here we never looked back. From Geocities and Blogger in the late 90s, through to Friendster and MySpace in at the turn of the millennium, the path to present day social stalwarts Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and the white-hot Pinterest, is littered with success and failure, innovation and disappointment.

This infographic takes a closer look at the history of social media, circa 1978-2012.

(Source: Marketingdirecto.com.)