The very first maps on record are Babylonian clay tablets that were made around 2300 B.C.. Do you think the men who chiseled those graphics into stone had any idea that we’d be looking at those maps using an electronic tablet that scoops information out of the air?

The world is changing faster than ever, and no where is that more obvious than in the social media world. Sites that didn’t even exist five years ago are now world powers and it makes for a fascinating visual.

Ethan Bloch of Flowtown recently posted his 2010 Social Networking Map which was inspired by the 2007 Online Community map by XKCD.

Taken together, the two maps are a quick visual reminder of how the social media world has changed, particularly when you look at the top players. Where MySpace dominated the 2007 map, it is now dwarfed (and relabeled, Former Kingdom of MySpace) by Facebook.

The map, which is built to represent the proportional size of each sites user base is also full of commentary on our new social order. Off the cost of YouTube is the Isle of LOL Cats, the Cape of Hitler’s Downfall Remake Videos and Strait of Rick Roll. Foursquare floats on the Sea of Personal Information and scattered through the world are Google Information Gathering Outposts.

Beyond being a humorous look at the online world as we know it, the 2010 Social Networking Map can help you get your marketing priorities straight. Do you have ads drifting away into Receding Glaciers of AOL? Is your instant messaging system located in the AIM Tundra? And what can you learn from those ghostly entities in the Land of Defunct Social Networks?

On the 2007 map, the Wiki islands were just being formed and the IRC Isles lived on after Usenet. in 2010, IRC is AWOL and the Wiki chain has developed into a strong group of united territories.

What do you think the map will look like in 2015? Or 2020? Maybe by then, it will just be one big social media program that was designed on a cell phone by a 10-year-old who got bored during a school assembly.

Click here to see the full 2010 Social Networking Map.

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