The Evolution of the Geek

The Internet is such a big and wonderful place, it is easy for some cool things to slip by unnoticed. My Google+ feed recently excavated a great infographic from Flowtown depicting the evolution of Geeks, something GeekDad missed the first time around:

“When one hears the word ‘geek’, images are conjured of pocket protectors and nightstands made out of old comic books,” wrote Dan Martell, one of the Flowtown co-founders, when first describing the graphic. “That old notion of geek-dom has since evolved into a new, tech-savy, and dare we say ‘cool’ geek.”

At the time this graphic was first published, Flowtown was a social media marketing application with 26,000 businesses and steady revenue growth for the previous year (“ramen profitable”). Issues with third-party selling of Facebook data, however, muddied the water and prompted a change for the analytics company. They dropped their primary service — turning email addresses into social networking information — and brainstormed a new direction that eventually became Gift Marketing, also known as social sampling (e.g., Kleenex brand fans send sample tissues to friends). They started collecting invite requests at the start of this summer to test their new service.

The infographics are one way the company contributes to Internet culture. They have some others, too. For those who want a hardcopy of “The Evolution of the Geek” poster, Flowtown is selling the poster for $20.