Don't court disaster | Bangkok Post: opinion

CURRENTS

Social media has come a long way since it began with the offer to come over and take a look at the first cave painting. More recently the written letter was the medium of choice, followed by the postcard, holiday snaps and slide nights. Then came the internet and over the past decade or so the focus has shifted from individual emails to a broader audience.

The earlier, more inclusive bulletin boards and forums changed back to the individual focus with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. "What do we think about this?" has changed to, "Look at me!" The earlier and still popular form of this change was the blog or online personal diary. This started as a place to go to and then went on to include a subscription-based delivery.

When pictures and videos got involved there was another shift. Personal websites with a visitor counter became the drive to see how many "friends" you could get. From the SMS, there was a move to tweeting _ getting as many people as possible to "follow" you.