With the rise of so many social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Digg, it’s easy to think of social media as a modern concept that followed the rise of the internet. However, social media itself is as old as the hills. Well. Maybe not the hills, but the technology that supports social media can be dated as far back as morse code. The following are five social media technologies that predate the internet and all are still in use.

Bulletin Board

Need a babysitter or a place to rent? Want to rant about your noisy neighbours? Getting rid of last semesters 5 lb textbooks? Post it! The great thing about bulletin boards is they are everywhere: coffee shops, university dormitories, and bus stops. If you need eyeballs and don’t want to pay the price for real estate in the classifieds, nothing does better than a good ol’ fashioned bulletin board. Bulletin boards are so effective that modern message boards take inspiration from them.

CB Radio

Breaker! Breaker! If you’re a trucker, the CB radio is your social link to the outside world. What is it? A selection of 40 radio channels anyone can use. It does not require a license and, unlike ham radio, it may be used for business as well as personal communications. In fact, in some rural areas the CB radio is the only radio. However, if you’re a city dweller, the CB radio can be a great social medium to talk to people in your neighborhood!

Morse Code

You’re lost in the wilderness and you need to communicate with nearby helicopters. What do you do? Grab a blanket, start a fire, and communicate in morse code of course! Though morse code is often used for emergencies, it is often the only form of communication for people with disabilities, such as those with severe motion disabilities. Who else uses it? Aviators, amateur radio operators, and the navy.

Telephone

The only telecommunications network that is more essential than the internet is the telephone! They’re so important that it’s common to spend hundreds of dollars a month on service. Entire industries are based on its use. Not only is the telephone the most used social media technology, it is also the most lucrative. How lucrative? Ask Apple how their iPhone is doing.

And even more than he realizes! Pick up a Vancouver Sun today to read about the “gutsy vocals” of R&B’s rising star, also known as Invoke’s CEO, Ryan.

Of course, our CEO is Ryan Holmes, not Ryan Shaw, and though he can’t take the credit for eschewing “the over-production that marks today’s soul music,” he will take credit for the grinning profile shot. It seems the Vancouver Sun accidentally used Holmes’s image in an article about an artist scheduled to appear as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, which starts tomorrow. Here is what Ryan Shaw looks like:

The image of Ryan Holmes comes from a shoot he did for a Vancouver Sun article about Invoke’s success at the PopVox Awards, penned by our favourite Sun reporter, Gillian Shaw, back in May–likely the reason for the screw-up. (We imagine the photo may have been saved as something like “ryan_shaw.jpg”)

All the same, the staff at Invoke would like to thank the Vancouver Sun for giving us fodder for our imagination. Ryan–an R&B singer!  We already know that he can do the worm. All he has to do is learn how to roundhouse kick and he’ll be the most well-rounded CEO on the block. We can see it now… “When Ryan Holmes plays Tetris, the game runs out of pieces to give him.“ or “If you spell Ryan Holmes in Scrabble, you win. Forever.“ or “Ryan Holmes sleeps with a night light. Not because Ryan Holmes is afraid of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of Ryan Holmes.”

(We could do this forever. Love you, Boss!)

Excuse the sweat on our brow, the glow in our cheeks and the smile on our faces - but WHEW. Last Saturday Invoke and thousands of Vancouverite friends showed up in all manners of dress (or lack thereof) to race along 10th Avenue in support of Chip’s Not Dead Yet, a fundraiser for the BC Children’s Hospital - and what a successful Saturday it was!

Live music, street performers, ten-foot-tall cowboys, six-foot pac men, three-foot batmen (batboys, I suppose), numerous men and women racing uphill in their skivvies, BBQed hamburgers, a packed beer garden all contributed to a grand total of approximately $100,000 raised for the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. That amount will be matched by Chip Wilson!

Not only did we have a stellar time at this Vancouver event, but Invoke also had a fantastic experience working intimately with Chip’s Not Dead Yet as the online marketing strategists for this event. We’d like to thank everyone who helped the event be a huge success - whether you be the businesses who blogged, the individuals who tweeted, or the organizations that rallied racers through Facebook and video contests. Of course, a huge thank you and raucous hand clapping is extended to Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon, whose vision and spirit was integral in making this event the success it was.

Here are just a few of our memories from the past weekend:

If you are engaged with social media in any way, chances are you have come across more than one reference to the protests in Tehran. From articles posted, to local protest events shared over Facebook, to liveblogs dedicated to minute-by-minute info-sourcing, to the fact that #iranelection has become the number one trending topic on Twitter (30,000+ tagged messages today!) it is evident that social media is a powerful communication tool for a world craving knowledge and involvement. Just as the social media community has glommed on to what’s happening in Iran, social media may arguably have had an impact on the elections (see BBC, NYTimes, CNN).

To help you navigate the web maelstrom surrounding this issue, here’s our condensed list of sources to follow as the events continue to unfold in Tehran.*

Live Blogs
For up-to-the-minute, in-depth reporting on the events in Tehran
The Daily Dish - The Atlantic - Live blog that aggregates information from different sources such as Flickr, Twitter, live blogs, YouTube. Updates several times a day. Is now posting live-tweets. Keep in mind that what you are viewing is unfiltered
Tehran Bureau - Independent source of news on Iran and the Iranian Diaspora. Very good collection of information including press round-ups, commentary, videos, art, features and a translated letter from Mousavi.
Guardian.co.uk Live Blog- Live aggregation of information with a focus on reports supplied by traditional news outlets.

Twitter users
Primary sources
Mousavi1388 - Information pertaining to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Presidential candidate
JimSciuttoABC - ABC News Senior Foreign Correspondant reporting from Tehran
Tehran Bureau - Twitter account for news source mentioned above
Madyar - Iranian Citizen in Tehran
Change_for_Iran - Iranian Student in Tehran
Persiankiwi - Iranian Citizen in Tehran

Photos
Boston.com - Iran’s Disputed Election
Flickr - Mousavi1388
Flickr - Iran09
Flickr - Hamed Saber

Video
Audiovisual context

IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo.

Kosoofvid Channel on YouTube

Irandoost09 Channel on YouTube

*Invoke does not take responsibility for the opinions expressed via any of the above media channels. They are simply our selection of what we perceive to be of greatest interest.

Trying to find Britney Spears on Twitter? Before June 11th, 2009 you’d have had 5 pages of search results to sift through. Looking for Ashton Kutcher? 11 pages. Oprah? Don’t even go there. So will the real celebrity please stand up?

Twitter is aiming to combat the increasing problem of impersonators with its new Verified Accounts feature, currently in beta. Intended for well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, tech execs, agencies and other prominent Twitter users prone to ‘identity confusion’, this feature will certify the authentic account with a Verified Account badge (seen below).

The phenomenon of Twitter impersonation has existed as long as the service itself, but often in a more obvious form. Witness the plethora of @fake____ accounts like @fakebarackobama and @fakejohnmccain.

However, more covert mimicry has occurred. In February, PC World published a humorous article about some of the more creative impersonations. In tech-savvy Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, now Mayor, ruffled feathers when his campaign jokingly impersonated opponent Peter Ladner on Twitter. And Twitter’s introduction of verified accounts comes on the heels of a legal situation in which St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa attempted to sue the company after someone set up a fake account in his name.

A friend of ours, Vancouver-based media maven Lorraine Murphy, better known by her moniker ‘Raincoaster’, has dealt with an impersonator named ‘Fake Raincoaster’. She found the obvious spoof on her persona flattering and amusing at first but over time, it became increasingly more irritating as questions over the impostor’s identity continued. So does Murphy believe Twitter’s Verified Accounts feature is an appropriate response to Twitter impersonators? Not really. “If there were reports of fraud related to identity spoofing on Twitter I’d find this to be a more pressing issue,” says Murphy, “I really just think this is Twitter attempting to monetize paranoia. Which might just make them very, very rich.”

It is not yet known whether Twitter will charge for the service, or if it will even offer it to the general public. At the moment, verified accounts are by invite only.