the first 'social network' birthed a hundred billion $ market and paved the way for Facebook, myspace, Bebo and all the other successful social networks. Sometimes the pioneer in a field isn't the one to make it..

Met my wife on Friendster! Take that Tinder!

Even earlier there was PlanetAll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pla...), acquired by Amazon. But, not as influential.

This was the first big one, but I always though of Six Degrees as the first social network that people actually joined* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six... * use not included