The history of social networks is long and centuries old. It’s littered with key moments like the launch of Instagram Stories, that time Zuck went on trial for Facebook’s privacy issues, and… honestly, let’s just look at the entire timeline of social media history.
So sit back, relax and join us as we look back at what was once the future.
The 33 Most Important Moments in the History of Social Media
Emergence of the first social network (1997)
On one of the first true social networks, SixDegrees.com, you could set up a profile page, create contact lists, and post to the networks.
The site amassed about a million users before being bought out for $125 million but closed in 2000.
The actual answer to the question “when the first social networking site was launched”is debatable. SixDegrees was certainly one of the first, but you have to define what a social networking site is before you can tell which one is the first.
For example, the PLATO system, developed by the University of Illinois in 1970, had many of the features of an early social network but was widely used in academia.
So, how old is social networking? It depends on the circumstances, but the first social media platforms started to appear in the late 90s and early 2000s, and the technology was born back in the 70s.
Hot or Not (2000)
Who can forget AmIHotorNot.com? The site encouraged users to submit photos of themselves so that others could rate their attractiveness. Rumor has it that Hot or Not influenced the creators of Facebook and YouTube and nurtured self-doubt in millions of people.
After being sold several times, it has now been rebranded as dating app Chat & Date.
Friends (2002)
Launched in 2002, Friendster was originally meant to be a dating site that would help people find mutual friends. You can create a profile, enable “status updates”and show your mood.
Unfortunately, the site’s surge in popularity in 2003 took the company by surprise. The flood of traffic took its toll on Friendster’s servers, affecting users who were increasingly looking to connect elsewhere.
Myspace: “A Place for Friends”(2003)
Rival Friendster Myspace (originally called MySpace) quickly became a go-to site for millions of trendy teens.
His customizable public profiles (which often contained music, videos, and poorly filmed semi-nude selfies) were visible to everyone, unlike Friendster’s private profiles.
2005 was the pinnacle of Myspace. The site had 25 million users and was the fifth most popular site in the US when it was sold to NewsCorp. And that was the beginning of his fall from trendy to ultra-tacky.
Gaining Momentum: The Emergence of LinkedIn, YouTube, and WordPress (and Many More) (2003–2005)
In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facemash, described as Harvard’s answer to Hot or Not. Facebook followed in 2004. In the same year, the millionth user was registered, and in 2005 the site became simply Facebook.
Around the same time, a wave of other social networks washed up on the shore:
- LinkedIn was born with the business community in mind
- Photo-sharing sites such as Photobucket and Flickr have sprung up.
- Social bookmarking sites such as del.ici.ous have emerged.
- The ubiquitous WordPress platform was born.
- Teen sites like Nexopia have been launched with colorful, customizable profiles.
- Video sharing hit the scene with YouTube
- News Aggregator/Snark Factory Reddit Arrives
Twitter hatches (2006)
Twitter (née twttr) took off in 2006.
The first ever tweet posted by co-founder @Jack Dorsey was “Just setting up my twttr.”and really set the tone for future tweets. Dorsey originally conceived twttr as a text messaging tool for friends.
TechCrunch reported that early twttr users were sending critical life updates such as: “Cleaning my apartment”and “Hungry.”(God, how times have (not) changed!)
LinkedIn “in black”(2006)
Unlike other networks, LinkedIn was the first to offer users paid premium packages. Its Jobs & Subscriptions section, the site’s first premium business line, helped generate revenue in the early days.
“To the best of our knowledge, a year of profitability is just a ‘flavor’ of the success we’re aiming to achieve at LinkedIn,”social media manager Mario Sundar said in a blog praising 2006 as LinkedIn’s first year “in the black . “.
YouTube Makes Partners, OG Influencers (2007)
Thanks to YouTube’s elephantine start, the hype grew. Between the beta stage in May 2005 and the launch in December 2005, the site generated nearly eight million page views per day. Leading up to the acquisition by Google in the fall of 2006, the site grew to 100 million videos viewed by 20 million dedicated users.
In May 2007, YouTube introduced its Partner Program. The affiliate program has allowed YouTubers such as Mr. Beast, make millions today. This moment essentially marked the beginning of social media influencers.
Tumblr and the microblogging age (2007)
In 2007, the social network described as “Twitter, YouTube and WordPress”crashed when 17-year-old David Karp launched Tumblr from his bedroom.
Shortly thereafter, the term microblogging became widely used to describe both Twitter and Tumblr, marking the exchange of “small”amounts of content.
Hashtag Comes (2007)
The strict 140-character limit for tweets sets Twitter apart from competitors including Facebook and Tumblr. But Twitter’s meaning was actually defined by the hashtag, a symbol that helped political organizers and ordinary citizens mobilize, promote and raise awareness.
Hashtags have also helped plant the seeds from which movements such as #Occupy, #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have grown. Plus, sucky times like #SundayFunday and #Susanalbumparty.
As the story goes, Twitter pioneer Chris Messina came up with a hashtag to organize tweets. It wasn’t until a couple of months later that the #SanDiegoFire hashtag was launched to gather tweets and updates about the California wildfires. In 2009, Twitter capitalized on the hashtag by adding hyperlinking capabilities.
Welcome Weibo (2009)
The Chinese Sina Weibo, or simply Weibo, is essentially a hybrid of Facebook and Twitter that was launched in 2009, the same year that Facebook and Twitter were banned in the country.
Along with WeChat and Douyin, Weibo remains one of the most popular social networks in China.
FourSquare deregistration (2009)
The location-based Foursquare app was one of the first to allow users to “check in”as well as share recommendations about their favorite neighborhoods and cities. They earned virtual mayors while they were there.
You may not remember Foursquare (or weren’t born in its heyday), but chances are you used the company’s technology. Foursquare’s geolocation API has been used for geofilters and location tagging in apps such as Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram.
Grindr revolutionizes sex (2009)
Grindr, which hit the scene in 2009, was the first geo-social dating app targeted at gay and bisexual men, helping them meet other men nearby. It revolutionized the culture of communication and paved the way for many other location-based dating apps (like Tinder) for straight and gay people alike.
Introducing Instagram (2010)
On July 16, 2010, one of the first Instagram photos posted by co-founder Mike Krieger (@mikeyk) was an uncaptioned shot of the marina, carefully filtered.
Instagram posts have gotten a little more sophisticated, largely due to the success of the platform, and now Instagram is the most downloaded app in the world.
Pinterest makes us yearn for pins (2010)
Pinterest launched in closed beta in 2010 and launched in 2011. Pinning quickly became the new favorite hobby (and verb) for household gods and goddesses.
As of 2022, Pinterest had 445 million monthly active users, which proves how popular the site remains.
Act of Vanishing Snapchat (2011)
Almost exactly one year after Instagram’s launch, its future rival Picaboo was launched, quickly renamed Snapchat after a lawsuit from the company of the same name.
The app’s early success reflected the ephemeral nature of life’s moments, allowing users to post content that would disappear after 24 hours. (Not to mention giving us all the chance to puke rainbows.)
Disappearing shots appealed to teenagers who were initially attracted to the app. Snapchat has also been the perfect alternative for teenagers to find their friends and get away from their families on Facebook.
Google Plus wants to party (2011)
2011 was also the year Google tried to release another response on Facebook and Twitter after previous failed attempts. In 2011, the invite-only Google Plus system was turned off, giving new users access to 150 invitations to send out before the official launch. Demand was so high that Google eventually had to put them on hold.
Unfortunately, the launch of the social network has not been able to match social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter. Google Plus struggled to rack up the staggering usage rates of its competitors, and in the end, it failed.
Twitch launch (2011)
Twitch, a hugely popular video game streaming site, was originally launched as a subsidiary of Justin.tv, a general interest streaming site launched in 2007.
Apparently, MANY people (about 45 million unique viewers by 2013) enjoy watching video games live. Amazon saw the surge and quickly picked up Twitch.
Facebook celebrates its billion and acquires Instagram (2012)
Eight years after its launch (from Zuck’s Harvard room), Facebook announced that its user base had reached a billion users.
“If you are reading this: Thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you. Helping a billion people connect is amazing, it’s humiliating, and by far the thing I’m most proud of in my life,”Zuckerberg said.
In the same year, Facebook acquired Instagram for a billion dollars, which became a notable moment in the history of social networks.
Vine Changes the Way We Look at Video (2013)
Vine was launched in 2013, but not before Twitter bought the video-sharing app for $30 billion. The premise was fairly simple—videos shared on Vine could be no longer than 6 seconds—but quickly spawned a distinct genre of humor that still resonates today.
Despite its quick success, the app went out of business pretty quickly due to apps like Snapchat and Instagram with their own video-sharing capabilities.
Sluggish (2013)
Slack shut down the same year as Google Hangouts and brought social networking to the corporate world in a way that LinkedIn didn’t.
Slack offers workers a place to connect online within corporations, and industry professionals a place to connect with others in similar Slack groups.
Patreon (2013)
While early social media influencers built followers on sites like YouTube and Twitch, their follower monetization leveled off with Patreon.
It was created by developer Sam Yam and musician Jack Conte who wanted to generate income from their YouTube videos. The platform allows visitors to subscribe to monthly or exclusive authored content.
Selfie Year (2014)
Twitter proclaimed 2014 the “Year of the Selfie “following Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars photo. This selfie has been retweeted over three million times, setting a Twitter record and winning Twitter’s Golden Tweet of the Year award.
If only Bradley’s arm were longer. Best photo. #oscar pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@EllenDeGeneres) March 3, 2014
Live Wars Begin (2015)
Meerkat was the first app to start the live streaming (RIP) craze. Then Twitter developed Periscope and won the streaming wars (for a while).
Periscope has become a popular app for streaming and watching live events. Showering with hearts every time you hit the record button was all the stimulus needed. It was so popular that Apple named it iOS App of the Year in 2015.
Now, live streaming is a standard feature on major apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. RIP on Periscope, 2015-2021.
Instagram launches Stories (2016)
Building on the Snapchat page, Instagram introduced Stories, allowing users to post sequences of photos and videos that disappear within 24 hours (although they can now be saved and archived).
Filters, stickers, polls, hashtags, and highlights to enhance stories made the app even more immersive.
In 2023, Instagram announced “Live Story Replay”, a feature that allows you to play live videos in your Instagram stories.
US elections and social media fake news crisis (2016)
One could argue that 2016 was a bad, very bad year for social media, and by extension, for democracy.
It was a year of sophisticated information warfare using social media “troll factories” used to spread misinformation, including false claims and conspiracy theories, during the US presidential election.
Facebook has since revealed that 126 million Americans have accessed the content of Russian agents during elections. In 2018, representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google appeared before the United States Congress in order to testify as part of an ongoing investigation into Russian attempts to influence elections.
A Star (TikTok) Is Born (2017)
ByteDance’s Douyin app was released outside of China under the name TikTok. The popularity of TikTok is spreading across Asian countries. It became widely popular in North America in 2019, around the same time Lil Nas X released on the Old Town Road platform, which quickly went viral.
@pmckey0
Twitter doubles character limit (2017)
Twitter doubled the caption character limit from 140 to 280 characters.
The major change, along with the introduction of Twitter threads (also known as Twitterstorms), now means that tweets that will make you go crazy become more and more inevitable as everyone maxes out their 280 characters.
Rick Ross’ Funniest Moments
Topic 🧵: pic.twitter.com/UgiWaWI4vW
— PleaseDontTouchMyRaf (@0piumThug) February 22, 2023
Facebook to face trial over data privacy (2018)
In early 2018, it was revealed that Facebook allowed a Cambridge Analytica researcher (someone who worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign) to collect data from 50 million users without their consent.
Faced with growing pressure over data privacy, Zuckerberg participated in a five-day hearing in the US Congress.
Instagram’s foray into video (2018–2021)
In 2018, Instagram increased the video length limit from one minute to one hour and launched a new IGTV app designed for long videos. In 2019, they also introduced Reels, an Instagram video feature.
In 2021, Instagram merged IGTV and Feed videos into a single format: Instagram Video. As a result, four different types of video formats were created in the application: clips, videos, stories, and broadcasts.
Social Commerce Emerges with Facebook and Instagram Stores (2020)
The global pandemic has changed the way people view e-commerce, accelerating the pace of adoption astronomically.
Facebook and Instagram are introducing Stores, a way for users to make in-app purchases and for companies on the platforms to sell easily. This feature marks a shift in the growth of social commerce.
Source: Bed.threads on Instagram
New platforms like Clubhouse and BeReal continue to break new ground (2020-2022)
As we entered the new decade, social media platforms continued to emerge in the digital landscape.
The social audio platform Clubhouse has become extremely popular during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. However, she has struggled to stay relevant as pandemic-related restrictions ease.
BeReal, a photo-sharing app that invites users to post one unfiltered photo per day, has made a big splash in 2022. While it was once the most popular social media app on the App Store, it remains to be seen if this is the next TikTok.
Source: BeReal
Elon Musk buys Twitter, app updates follow (2022)
In 2022, billionaire Elon Musk buys Twitter for $44 billion. The change in ownership was followed by a series of updates to the app, including paid verification, the number of visible tweet views, and an unprecedented look at the recommendation algorithm.