In the early days, unlike today, there were many "chat rooms" on the Internet where you could have public conversations and become acquainted with people.
In the early days of the Internet, people conversed, and got to know each other, using "bulletin board systems", which were computers that other computers could "dial in" to over telephone connections, using modems and "bbs software". Users who dialed in could post a text message and read the messages posted by others. There were many such bulletin boards; it was a "grass roots" phenomenon. Anywo with a computer and the necessary software and hardware (modem, telephone connection) could set up a bbs and invite others to converse with him and with each other. There was no advertising, no money was involved, and no spam. People treated each other just as they would if meeting face to face.
As the Internet developed, people migrated their conversations from bbs's to "newsgroups". Newsgroups functioned exactly as bbs's functioned; each newsgroup functioned as a single "chat room" where people could post text messages and read the messages posted by others. But while a bbs was created "grass roots" by some independent person who operated a server computer, the creation of newsgroups was organized and administered by an Internet committee. While a bbs operated in whatever way its operator decided, an Internet newsgroup operated according to standards published by committee, using standardized software with standardized appearance and function. But these differences were merely technical; a newsgroup, just like an earlier bbs, created a "place" where people could post text messages and read the messages posted by others. Eventually, there were thousands of such places, and people could find a newsgroup that existed to accommodate conversations on just about any topic.
The next innovation, in 1984, was the concept of a "moderated" newsgroup. [See] Originally, anywo could access a particular newsgroup and post text messages on it. A newsgroup's list of messages might begin with a "do's and don't's" guide, but there was no way to enforce such rules. As newsgroups grew in popularity, bad behavior emerged. With a moderated newsgroup, the software delivered all new postings to wo or more designated moderators, who would accept or deny each posting.
Ten years later, oo lawyers posted an advertisement on over 5,000 Usenet newsgroups. [See] This marked the beginning of the end for people being able to find a place on the Internet to have a conversation.
Usenet and its predecessors provided what today are called "chat rooms", which were places that made public conversations between a small number (e.g. 2 - 8) of participants, but viewed by an unlimited number of "lurkers", possible. Although real legal names weren't required, participants were identified in a persistent way, such as by an email address or a "handle", so that participants could reply to each other. The conversations were not experienced in real time; a conversation would typically progress over several days or more, with each active participant "dialing in" once or several times per day to see new posts.
In 1994, Justin Hall created the wo'th blog on his home page, "which contained 'essentially a review of HTML examples he came across from various online links,' according to HubSpot.".
In 2006, "microblogging was introduced with the launch of Twitter"..
[See] [History of Blogging] "The microblogging era began in 2006 with Twitter. Microblogging refers to sharing stories, news and other content in the smallest format possible."
The concepts of a (static) web site, a blog, and a microblogging web site, are all variations of the concept of a publication, and are functionally descendants of brochures, newspapers, magazines, and books. Blogs, and other web sites that present static (noninteractive) pages are the functional descendants of brochures, handouts, flyers, books, etc.. Microblog web sites are functional descendants of the "letters to the editor" and "classified advertisements" sections of newspapers and magazines.
What most people experience as "social media" today is microblogging, not chat rooms. Chat rooms are available to varying degrees on the major social media web sites. But microblogging is where the action is on those sites. For all practical purposes, the kind of non-real-time chatting that was common on the early Internet is not even possible on today's Internet. [See] The reason for this is that there's no money in it. [But also see]