# Dialed In: The Prehistory of Social Media

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-tech-7190029/dialed-in-the-prehistory-of-social-media
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-tech-7190029/dialed-in-the-prehistory-of-social-media.md
Podcast: [Decoding Tech](https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-tech-7190029)
Published: 2025-08-20T12:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/computer-history-museum/episodes/Dialed-In-The-Prehistory-of-Social-Media-e3710a5
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/ffa6cbb0/podcast/play/107036421/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-7-18%2F001fc042-1f78-4f38-66fe-31269c615c0e.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/decoding-tech-7190029/episodes/dialed-in-the-prehistory-of-social-media
Duration seconds: 4470

## Resource

Long before online forums and communities like Reddit and Discord, and even before the World Wide Web, bulletin board systems (BBSs) reigned supreme. In the 1980s and '90s, millions of people participated in more than 100,000 BBSs. Kevin Driscoll, author of the award-winning book The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media , and technology and society expert danah boyd joined CHM’s Marc Weber on stage to discuss the innovative world of BBSs and how they shaped today's digital world. This conversation was recorded on April 25, 2024 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, as a part of the CHM Live series. To watch a video of this program, please visit the Computer History Museum's YouTube channel. To learn more about the Computer History Museum and our upcoming CHM Live events, visit our website at www.computerhistory.org

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/decoding-tech-7190029/episodes/dialed-in-the-prehistory-of-social-media/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-tech-7190029/dialed-in-the-prehistory-of-social-media.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.