Old Social Media Sites: History, Church Use, Guru Advice and How Platforms Make Money
Old social media sites shaped how billions of people first understood online community. Friendster launched in 2002 and demonstrated that people would create profiles, add connections, and spend time on a social graph. MySpace followed in 2003 and proved that user-generated content and customization could drive massive engagement. These old social media platforms built the behavioral templates that Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok still rely on today.
Old social media also taught us hard lessons: about data privacy, about platform dependency, and about what happens when a network loses critical mass. Understanding those lessons is useful if you’re evaluating platforms for your brand, looking for social media for churches, trying to understand what a social media guru actually knows, or simply curious about how do social media sites make money in the first place.
The History of Old Social Media Sites
Old social media sites span three generations. The first generation (2002–2006) includes Friendster, MySpace, and Livejournal — platforms built on personal profiles, friend lists, and simple status updates. The second generation (2006–2012) brought Twitter, Facebook’s expansion beyond colleges, YouTube’s monetization, and early versions of LinkedIn’s professional network. The third generation shifted to mobile-first platforms: Instagram, Snapchat, and eventually TikTok.
What killed old social media wasn’t always a competing platform. Friendster lost its network in Asia after scaling problems made the site too slow to use. MySpace lost its teen demographic to Facebook and never recovered the emotional center that music profiles had briefly created. These platforms didn’t fail for lack of users — they failed when their core value proposition stopped working reliably.
Lessons for Today’s Platform Choices
Old social media history shows that platform loyalty lasts only as long as the platform delivers value. If you’ve built your business or community on a single platform, the risk is real. Diversify your presence across two or three channels and build an owned list — email or SMS — that no algorithm controls.
Social Media for Churches: What Actually Works
Social media for churches works best when it reflects actual community life rather than broadcasting content. Churches that post sermon clips, volunteer highlights, event recaps, and behind-the-scenes preparation consistently outperform those that only post promotional announcements. Members engage with people they know, not institutional messages.
Facebook Groups remain the strongest social media for churches in 2026 for sustained discussion. Closed groups give members a space to share prayer requests, coordinate volunteering, and discuss study topics without the friction of a public-facing page. Instagram works for visual storytelling. YouTube works for sermon archives. No church needs to be on every platform — pick the two where your congregation already spends time.
What a Social Media Guru Actually Knows
The social media guru label gets applied loosely. A genuine expert in this space understands platform algorithms, audience psychology, content production workflows, and measurement — and can show you results they’ve achieved for clients in documented case studies. Anyone who claims guaranteed follower growth or promises viral content is overstating what’s controllable.
How do social media sites make money is the question that explains everything about how platforms behave. Every major platform makes the majority of its revenue from advertising. That means the algorithm is tuned to maximize time on platform — because more time means more ad impressions. Understanding how do social media sites make money explains why organic reach declines over time (pushing brands toward paid ads) and why emotionally charged content tends to outperform calm, informational posts in the feed.