Mashable.com released a lovely infographic about the history of social media that got us here at Arabian Bytes reminiscing about the very first social networks we started using regularly.

Image courtesy of Flickr, rishibando, as seen on Mashable.com

Do you remember the first website that got you all excited about connecting to others across the world? Or the first chatting service you were hooked on, whilst other family members complained about how the telephone was never free to use anymore (RIP the humble dial-up modem).

So we asked:

  1. What is the first social media website you ever used regularly?
  2. What is the first chatting service you ever used regularly?

Here is what they had to say:

That’s a tricky one – probably Friendster.

Chat was ICQ!

Facebook

MSN Messenger or Skype

Facebook or LinkedIn

MSN Messenger

Facebook

ICQ

Facebook

Yahoo! Messenger

GMail

Skype or MSN Messenger

Yahoo

AOL Chat

MySpace – so bright, so buzzy! But I have to say I’ve never looked back after Facebook came into my life.

MSN Messenger – The world became a much smaller place.

And finally, here are mine:

Excite.com was my first social website. Loved the forums, and it was even the provider of my very first email address!

As for chat, ICQ was a lot of fun.