Rory Cellan-Jones looks at the social networking sites of the future and asks where the phenomenon is heading. New sites are springing up all the time. The future of social networking could lie in localised sites geared towards specific interests, in limiting your online circle to your closest friends, or in sites that allow users to keep control of their personal information. Finally, Rory returns to the social networking pioneers of the 70s and 80s. How do the hippies and hackers who...

Rory Cellan-Jones tells the story of the social networking scramble of the early 2000s and finds out how Facebook emerged to become world's biggest social network. Facebook wasn't the first site of its kind - other businesses had a lot in common with Mark Zuckerberg's efforts - but its simplicity and the single-minded focus of its CEO gave it an advantage over the competition. With big growth has come big controversy, over privacy, security, and targeted advertising. Rory finds out that some...

Rory Cellan-Jones traces the roots of social networking from the counterculture of the 70s through early bulletin boards and the first networks on the World Wide Web. Forty years ago, hippies and hackers came together to produce the first attempts at online community. Rory follows the trend through to the arrival of the World Wide Web, which turned a mass audience on to the internet and social networking. Part 1 of 3.

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