Twitter and Facebook Prototypes existed more than 60 and 100 Years Ago

Just how innovative are social media networking applications? Or are they merely successful (or less successful) digital conversions of concepts that have existed long before them?

The social media networking application hosted at Facebook.com has become very popular in recent years, but the idea of a "Face Book" is at least over 100 years old.

"Twitter" as gossip can be traced back more than 60 years.

Jenna Wortham reports at Bits Blog in the New York Times in The 'Face Book Fad' Is More Than a Century Old:

"Bryan Benilous, a historical newspaper specialist at the digital-archive company Proquest, said he and his colleagues came across a Boston Daily Globe article from August 24, 1902, titled, "Face Book The New Fad," describing a party game where revelers sketch out cartoony caricatures for fun."

As Wortham writes in addition:

"[Benilous has also] uncovered a 1942 Washington Post article titled "Think Before You Twitter" about gossiping and a 1903 article referring to the first "pocket telephone.""