Ten years ago I was on the core team helping Sony envision and develop an innovative online service for Europeans. Sony Interactive Services launched “FriendFactory” in the UK and Germany as a pilot in 1998; they hoped to get enough traction to work the bugs out of the business model and then expand into other countries. It was an amazing innovation for its day — most likely the world’s first social media marketing platform — but way too early.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I can see that it was an early precursor to Twitter, but also offered personal blogging, community building tools, and other aspects of social media.