The Secret History Of Social Networking

Forty years ago, hippies and hackers came together to produce the first attempts at online community. Rory visits the scene of the perhaps the first computer social network open to the general public. Community Memory was a series of terminals in Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay area which opened for business in 1973.

It never picked up more than a handful of users, but as personal computers became more common in the 1980s, a host of online bulletin board systems sprang up around the world - although The WELL was perhaps the most influential. An offshoot of the Whole Earth Catalog, The WELL's discussion forums interested journalists as well as computer nerds and showed how computer networks might impact offline life.

And Rory follows the trend through to the arrival of the World Wide Web, the thing that turned a mass audience on to the internet and online social networking.

Millions signed up for early sites like SixDegrees and Friendster. But the lack of digital cameras and ubiquitous internet access in its late-90s heyday limited the usefulness of SixDegrees as a networking tool. And Friendster's sheer popularity in the early 2000s caused tech problems that the company struggled to overcome. It wouldn't be too long, however, before social networking hit the mainstream. Part 1 of 3.

Interviewees include:

Lee Felsenstein, co-founder, Community Memory

Larry Brilliant, co-founder, The WELL

Stewart Brand, co-founder The WELL

Howard Rheingold, early WELL user, author of The Virtual Community

John Perry Barlow, early WELL user, co-founder Electronic Frontier Foundation

Marc Weber, founding curator, Computer History Museum

Andrew Weinrich, founder, SixDegrees.com

Jonathan Abrams, co-founder, Friendster.

Rory Cellan-Jones traces the roots of social networking in the 70s and 80s.

Rory Cellan-Jones traces its roots

Online social networking had been around for decades, but the popularity of the World Wide Web opened the door to new applications and mass appeal.

For the first time, ordinary people were using computers to socialise in a new way. The rapid growth of our online lives resulted tempted dozens of entrepreneurs into the social networking fray.

In the UK, Bebo took off in British schools - and struck fear in the hearts of parents. Rory visits the couple who built the site and sold it to American tech giant AOL.

MySpace was once network of the future, but after being bought by News Corporation, its tech problems allowed other sites to take off.

The real push came from American college campuses, where wired hipsters were looking for ways to manage their social lives online.

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.

From Harvard, Zuckerberg expanded around the world, now counting among his users 500 million people and a third of the British population. But with big growth has come big controversy, over privacy, security, and the targeted advertising that Facebook relies on for the lion's share of its profits.

Now one company is firmly at the top of the social networking pyramid, but the history of the industry has shown that fame can be fleeting. Rory finds out that even young people are becoming more wary about what they share online - could new networks spot a gap in the market and steal Facebook's crown? Part 2 of 3.

Interviewees include:

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO, Facebook

Chris Cox, vice president of product, Facebook

Chris DeWolfe, co-founder MySpace

Julia Angwin, Wall Street Journal reporter, author of Stealing MySpace

Michael and Xochi Birch, co-founders, Bebo

Wayne Ting, co-founder, Campus Network

David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect.

Rory Cellan-Jones finds out how Facebook grew and captivated millions.

Rory Cellan-Jones traces its roots

The power of social networks has taken off in recent years. Now, there are more than half a billion Facebook users, but does that mean that one site will dominate social networking in the future? Rory visits the headquarters of microblogging site Twitter, where a new way of sharing information is being developed.

With the explosive growth of Facebook has come vigorous debate about privacy, sharing information online, and about what online social networking is doing to our relationships. Today, some young entrepreneurs think they've spotted gaps in the market where Facebook is vulnerable.

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 created the first social network think their revolution has turned out? Part 3 of 3.

Interviewees include:

Biz Stone, co-founder, Twitter

Dennis Crowley, co-founder, Foursquare

Reid Hoffman, co-founder, LinkedIn

Dave Morin, co-founder, Path

Brian Hughes Halferty, co-founder, Kiltr

Johan Stael von Holstein, co-founder, MyCube

Daniel Grippi, co-founder Diaspora*

Baroness Susan Greenfield, professor of pharmacology, Lincoln College Oxford

Natalia Morari, Moldovan journalist and activist

Larry Brilliant, co-founder, The WELL

John Perry Barlow, early WELL user, co-founder Electronic Frontier Foundation

Lee Felsenstein, co-founder, Community Memory.

Rory Cellan-Jones asks where social networking will go in the future.

Rory Cellan-Jones traces its roots