If you're going to talk about the historical significance of social computing, I would imagine that Usenet would figure in the story somewhere. To jump from em

If you're going to talk about the historical significance of social computing, I would imagine that Usenet would figure in the story somewhere. To jump from email threads (that the authors incorrectly call forums) to modern social networks leaves out quite a bit of the story! Usenet was a remarkable tool for communication and community-building, as was Compuserve (already mentioned by skookumchuck). Usenet was deployed in 1980, only a year after the SF-LOVERS email chain started.