Who put the Me in Media?

As might be expected, given the nature of social networking, the references to I, Me and We aren't hard to find.
No one can keep up with social media channels opening and closing around so, though Wikipedia has a separate list of defunct sites, many on this list were no longer, despite the recent editing.

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• 43 Things
• Avatars United
• Bolt
•  Capazoo
• eConozco
• Fitfinder
• Formspring
• Hyves
• Mobli
• Mugshot
• Orkut
• Piczo
• PlanetAll
• Pownce
• Sixdegrees.com
• So.cl 
• Surfbook
• Windows Live Spaces - formerly MSN Spaces
• Yahoo! 360°
• Yahoo! Kickstart
• Yahoo! Mash

The story of social media certainly shows the travails. By no means did getting in first guarantee success, when you have an audience as unpredictable as the world waking up to the potential and participating in ever cutting edge technology.

Social networking started in 1971 with the first email. 1978 saw the Bulletin Board System and Usenet. The first social networking site was Geocities, created in 1994.
AOL Instant Messenger appeared in 1997 and did what it said on the can (tied to a piece of string). AOL is considered to be a precursor to the rise of social networking sites.