As we look at the first decade of the World Wide Web, a lot of things become clear:

While the Internet is great for commerce, economics should not (fully) control the web, there is a human side to the web, it is intended for connection
There will always be an urge for control and there will always be considerable resistance if the control seems unjust
Companies will spend billions of dollars on acquisitions to stay on top, even if those deals might flop
People want to be heard, hence also the urge to create

There are lots of inspiring, interesting, frustrating, initiating and deliberating stories to tell. And the Internet has made it easier than ever to share those stories. I recently spend 20 minutes talking about Nike World Cup and European Cup football (soccer) commercials that were launched between 1996 and 2016 on a sports podcast. The most noticeable one was the Nike 1998 World Cup commercial, which featured Brazil National team getting their inner child out at an Airport, with Sergio Mendes’ Mas Que Nada playing in the background. The strength of the campaign was so strong that one third of the people interviewed after the World Cup were convinced Nike was the tournaments sponsor, which was almost equal to the amount of people that taught that Adidas (the actual sponsor) was the main sponsor. While Nike removes all old commercials from their YouTube account (could not find an official statement, but I reckon it has something to do with player contracts), all commercials resurface on YouTube, often uploaded by fans and sports/marketing enthusiasts, with several re-uploaded commercials reaching up to almost 100 million views.

Nike’s strength on Social Media can be brought back to their understanding of storytelling and their willingness to experiment with it. In 2012, an experiment initiated by Casey Neistat changed the way online branding could be done forever. In a 4 minutes 37 seconds video Casey took a branded message and made it into a story. ‘Make it count’ now has 30 million views, and the landscape has completely shifted with brands willing to pay online creators to sponsor their videos instead of making commercials on their own. This however, would have only been possible for a very select group of people in the World Wide Web’s early days. However, the framework was already there. Through the Internet, it was finally possible to tell a story that could easily be told to the whole world. The brilliance of the web is that you can freely generate content for or with others.

The first impact came with blogging. It allowed anyone to publish information, without have to deal with an editor-in-chief who decided on what is interesting and what is allowed. The Internet became a storybook full of personal perspectives and experiences. There was however one big catch, you had to write it on your own webpage. The first decade of the World Wide Web lived with websites that wasn’t optimized for participation of the end user. People were pretty much limited to viewing online content in a passive manner.

Enter Web 2.0.

Instead of merely viewing websites, the end of the 1990s and early 2000s saw the rise of websites that actually allowed commenting by users/visitors, creating profiles and several different forms of increased participation. This enabled mass participation as we know it on the Internet today, as it became easier to participate online, without needing any advanced technological knowledge. This development also spurred user-generated content, content that was created by the website visitors instead of the website creator.

Allowing User-generated content also meant the ability to crowd source for information. After a disappointing year with his Nupedia project, Jimmy Wales decided to launch Wikipedia, which allowed crowdsources articles, initially with the idea to submit those to expert. To much of his and the experts their surprise, the crowdsources Wikipedia article were often extremely well-written and comprehensive, but also very accurate. With Wikipedia, the generation of user-generated content was born. For some, Web 2.0 meant a step towards a more inclusive future, the step that led to the creation of Social Media platforms as we know them today. For others, Web 2.0 is just web jargon, a hype word that doesn’t necessarily see much. But most importantly, Web 2.0 was another proof on how the web is supposed to function. Wikipedia in that sense proved the strength of the web as Tim Berners-Lee designed it.

a collaborative space where people can interact.

And the interaction… would only grow.

[...to be continued...]

About Social Media in Suriname

This story is part 30 of my #Maynia goal to write a book in the month of May. The topics I'll be writing about from May 1st until May 31st, 2020:

(Want to read them all? The chapters will become clickable as the month progresses. Please note that I'm not always writing in chronological order, so check all 31 to see which are clickable)

The history of the Internet according to the Internet
1 - Predicting the Future
2 - The origin of the online community
3 - The birth of the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web
4 - Endless opportunities
5 - For education and entertainment
6 - Social Media before Social Media

The Rise of Web 2.0
7 - In Search of the Online Empires
8 - User Generated Content
9 - Let’s Get Connected

The Golden Generation
10 - From friends and relatives to personal interest
11 - The birth of the like button
12 - Being number 1

The Battle for the internet
13 - Socialnomics and the fight for online supremacy
14 - The features and takeovers that shaped the landscape
15 - It’s more than just Social

The Mainstream and The Alternatives
16 - The rise of the creator and the influencer
17 - The comeback of traditional media
18 - The age of information overload

The Marketeer and the Community
19 - Can’t we all have a little fun?
20 - Is age really just a number
21 - The Dangers of Dopamine and Instant Gratification

Suriname: From Dail Up to Tik Tok
22 - Getting connected
23 - Before Facebook Conquered the World
24 - The Growth of Social Media minded Suriname
25 - The Rise of Social Media Entertainment
26 - Twisting The Rules
27 - Free Facebook
28 - The diversification of Social Media
29 - From Brand Ambassadors to Social Media Influencers
30 - The Fight against Fake

The Recap
31 - What’s next?