Before stepping forward toward an international social network, Qbr looks back for a moment and publishes a research paper on online communication evolution. From internet creation to the chat line, from dating to social networking, the history of a life that evolves through the wires and materializes on computer screens, with the end result of actually connecting real people. In school they teach us the importance of history, because the knowledge of the past helps us to interpret the present and points us in the right direction towards the future: actually this thought popped into our minds when we decided to embark on an investigation of the origins of web socialization.

So, on we published the results of our work: a study to describe the very first internet steps all the way to today’s big social networks, describing a fascinating path that in only a few years has led millions of people to chat, send emails, share photos, videos, interests and experiences, free from old restrictions, thanks to computer mediation.

Nowadays, if you are older than 25 or 30 and fortunate enough to have owned a pc since childhood, you have already experienced this evolution, probably astonished, getting used to changes and novelties a little at a time. The youngest, however, face this extraordinary device right away getting used to a life with no limits. In any case, Internet is a matter of fact, a wonderful reality to play with, that can be used to meet people, to find a job or friends, to express oneself.

This reality however, has a long history; a history made of software and websites, but mostly of people who through those websites and software connect with each other creating a world just as complex and vast as the real world
What we’ve created is a real tale, from the 60’s up to now, from Arpanet to Internet, from the first chat line to the latest large social networks. If it is true that “the sense of history is conquered making some history” (Antonio Baldini), Qbr is part of this history with a case history, telling its own story from 2003 to now, to future projects.

Claudio Saputo
Press Office

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