It's Open - Social Media Strategy Consultancy

I came across this retro-style comic on Mashable, poking fun at how the world used to be before it became, well…the world wide web.

It got me thinking about what our lives were really like without access to instant information and social media.

Remember when…

• Sharing your photos would involve a lengthy process of attaching every photo into an email, waiting an hour for it to load, then sending out to the poor sods who had to load every single photo. That, or you’d have to take a trip to Snappy Snaps. Clearly, George Michael is a fan of the old-fashioned method.
• You didn’t have a mobile phone. Or, at least, your phone boasted only three features: Calls, texting and Snake. I genuinely have no idea how we all coped without them. I guess we were all just better at maintaining some form of organisation – and we actually had to turn up on time to appointments.
• Checking your email involved getting to a computer or your humongous laptop and finding somewhere to plug your internet lead in. Wireless? Surely that’s some form of techy witchcraft?
• Finding out some quick info involved a trip to the library. Just think how much time and effort Quora, Wikipedia and Twitter save us!
• Finding out information on old lovers/friends/enemies from school relied on nosy neighbours and real school reunions.
• We paid the full price for everything. MyVoucherCloud and Groupon were simply distant dreams for barganistas. As was the concept of shopping in your pants.
• We didn’t get twitchy if the internet crashed and left us unable to check our friend’s current emotional state/relationship status/virtual farm progress.
• Your witty commentary of X Factor/Strictly/Question Time would be wasted on the three people in your lounge. Two of whom are asleep.
• Adding the term ‘guru’ to your job title usually meant you were part of a religious cult, and not a social media expert.
• All phone conversations took place on the kitchen stairs, possibly on a novelty phone. And, as mentioned onDork Adore, phone calls started with hello rather than “my battery is really low so we might get cut off.”

Do you remember the world before it went online? What couldn’t you live without now?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.