Last week, Invoke was featured in a CBC segment profiling the impact social media has had at the 2010 Olympic Games, and the role it is predicted to play in the upcoming 2012 Olympic games in London. The CBC segment featured our video conversation tool, Vidrollr, the freshest social web application out of the Invoke laboratory since HootSuite.

Any HootSuite user knows that Invoke is at the forefront of social technology development. We’re pretty good at using new technologies, too. A bunch of us have been using foursquare, the trendy, location-based social game, since its debut at SXSW this year. foursquare launches in Vancouver today. One of Invoke’s fearless leaders, Dario Meli, (@quikness on Twitter), has been spending a great deal of time in the States lately, during which he’s been honing his foursquare skills.

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.

Five Pre-Internet Social Media Technologies

With the rise of so many social med

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….

Here at Invoke, many of us are Star Trek fans at heart. Watching its rebirth this weekend, we were struck by its fresh approach, yet respectful nod to the “old” universe, and the casting was spot on. But it made us ask: if we could recast Star Trek with social media personalities, who would be who?