DeviantArt & Wayback Machine

The first snapshot recorded was Aug 15, 2000:

http://web.archive.org/web/20000815205911/http://www.deviantart.com/

---

The last snapshot recorded: Feb 2, 2013

http://web.archive.org/web/20130202013124/http://www.deviantart.com/

DeviantArt  has made major changes from 2000 to now.

In 2000 it was a one page vertically scrollable 3 column fixed format with many links with very few images. The home page was not at all user friendly with redundant functionality.

For example:

The left column consisted of “Deviations” that had many, many choices and a user login (also repeated @ the top left corner of the page).

Now it has revamped to a modern streamlined image based 2 column semi fluid format. The body contains the bulk of the images and the left column gives users the choice of what’s new and the choice of category. All redundancy is eliminated. Many more choices are offered with in the footer of the site eliminating the right column.

Really the only noticeable thing that stayed relatively the same is the login option at the top left corner of the page. 

Social Media: Past, Present and Five Years from Now

Past:

I started using social media networking when MySpace was considered #1 in 2006. I loved being able to personalize my profile and creating music playlists. After a while I noticed messing with my profile was the only thing I was doing and my friends were rarely logging on. That’s when Facebook came into the picture for me in 2008.

Present:

Now the top ranked social media networks are:

     1.     Facebook with 750,000,000*

     2.    Twitter with 250,000,000*

     3.    LinkedIn with 110,000,000*

     4.   Pinterest with 85,500,000*

     5.    MySpace with 70,500,000*

     6.   Google+ 65,000,000*

     7.    DeviantArt 25,500,000*

     8.    LiveJournal 25,500,000

        * estimated unique monthly users.[1]

I participate with the social networks highlighted in red.
However I mainly focus on Facebook and Pinterest and periodically check in with the others.

With Facebook I started out as a pretty heavy gamer and made a ton of friends through that common thread. I have since moved on using it to check out interesting images, reading up on subjects that I’m interested in, including alternative health which I also share posts on a business page that I created and manage for my mother.

I find Facebook can almost be a full time job. The various pages that a person can “like” or follow, along with friends posts or shares can be daunting to keep up with. I found it has gotten old trying to keep up with the newsfeed so I have grouped pages within interests and “friends” within lists. This has helped organize how I interact on Facebook but it is still time consuming.

Future:

Right now Google is promoting their smart glasses [2] . These along with other upcoming technologies such as: Optical Pattern Recognition and Natural Language Processing will make the use of smart phones, tablets and smart glasses much easier to use. The Social Media platforms will have to follow suit to allow ease of use by their members or fade into the background [3].

References:
[1]   http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites
[2]   http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-glass-explorers-1500-20130220,0,1248392.story
[3]   http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/social-media-future-tech/