Brian McConnell recaps a history of online social networking, tracing the common features that have prevailed since the bulletin boards of the 1980s to the current excitement surrounding Facebook. He also makes some predictions about what’s to come in online social networking.

McConnell postulates that just as online access services went from domination by a few commercial providers to standard equipment on every computer, so too will commercial social networks eventually be implemented on the open web. As long as users can post profiles and updates, and as long as their networks can easily find that information, then there is no reason why any company should dominate the market. In other words, friends could find each other regardless of whether they use Facebook or MySpace or Spock or any other social networking tool.

McConnell predicts that users will favor independent networking tools because they will clearly place ownership of personal data in their own hands. He suggests that a blog authoring company such as WordPress could easily add a profile publishing feature, and warns companies like Facebook to define this trend before it passes by them.