Really.
One feature of Myspace and Facebook is that they both have internal email systems. However, you must be a member of one or the other in order to reach others in the same network. You can't internally message a Myspace user from Facebook.
Analogously, Ypsilanti in 1907 had two competing and mutually hostile telephone companies. Ypsilantians subscribed to either the Washtenaw Home Telephone Company (265 homes in Ypsi around this time) or the Michigan State Telephone Company (1,478 homes in Ypsi). The systems did not overlap. If you were a member of WHTC and your friend across town was a member of MSTC, you could NOT call them, just as you can't communicate internally between Myspace and Facebook.
Hardly what you'd expect from communications companies!
Background: Kind readers may recall a discussion the other day about a 1907 Washtenaw Light and Power ad. Alert reader jml asked, "Any idea what the line at the bottom, "Both Phones 1" means? Were there two competing phone services, and Washtenaw Power & Light got the coveted '1' number for both?"
Dusty D offered a speculation that turned out to have been wrong. However, after snuffling around, it emerges that jml was correct: at the time of this advertisement, Ypsilanti had dual, and dueling, telephone company systems.
The boildown: When Bell's 'phone patent petered out in 1893, numerous independent telephone companies leapt into being and vigorously competed. Michigan had many, and Ypsilanti two.Ypsilanti businesses subscribed to BOTH the WHTC (which is "the company" referred to in the excerpt at above left) and the MSTC in order to reach and be reached by both pools of subscribers, much as modern businesses maintain profiles on multiple social networking sites.
The WHTC was eventually bought by the MSTC, the latter of which eventually became Ameritech and then SBC.
SBC is the telephone company whose earlier iterations, a century ago, wiped out Ypsilanti's problem of competing social networks. Today SBC also provides Internet service, with which newbie users may create a Facebook page---only to encounter the frustration of not being able to communicate between social networking systems. The recursive irony!
But, phooey, that's nothing new! High-tech Ypsilantians a century ago had the same dilemma!
Thanks to jml for the great question!
