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Talkomatic
Talkomatic was the world's first multi-user chat room. Talkomatic used the PLATO system, which was developed in the early 1970s at the University of Illinois by two college students and the programmers of the PLATO System, Doug Brown and David Woolly. PLATO allowed for the first "online community" to take place. Using the PLATO System, users were able to do things like email, post in discussion forums, play multiplayer games, and, in 1973, use Talkomatic chat rooms.
http://talko.cc/about.html -
Bulletin Board System (BBS)
BBSs were considered the world's "primary online communities" before the World Wide Web was even created. They were generated by their own server, which limited their use to text-only updates. Their primary use was to communicate simple messages from one person to another, like a real bulletin board would. Users would use the sites as a blog, posting about certain topics they were interested in.
https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2004/07/bloggers-bbs-and-the-rising-tide-of-internet-public-opinion/ -
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
Created by America On-Line employees Barry Appelman, Eric Baseo and Jerry Harris, the AOL Instant Messaging service revolutionized communication among teenagers and young adults. The site was unique in the features that it provided, such as the use of emoticons, the famous "away message" that was similar to a status update, and allowing users to create their own personal profile.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pioneering-aol-instant-messenger-end-180965152/ -
SixDegrees.com
Founded by Andrew Weinreich in 1997, SixDegrees.com is the most agreed-upon website to be considered the "world's first social media site". SixDegrees included features like allowing for the creation of a personal profile, friends lists and school affiliation. SixDegrees also allowed for users to create "weblogs", which introduced the world to the blogging culture.
http://historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/ -
LinkedIn
LinkedIn was created by a team of recruits from PayPal and SocialNet who released the professional website a short six months after it's creation had began. LinkedIn, still considered the "Social Media Site for Professionals", allowed users to create a personal profile that documented their skills and experience to attempt to link employers with future employees.
https://ourstory.linkedin.com/ -
Skype
Founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, Skype wasn't always used for video chats. It started out being popular because voice calling was free through Skype, anywhere in the world. Skype eventually added the iconic video-calling feature and with it, required payment for calls made to non-Skype users. http://techland.time.com/2011/05/10/a-brief-history-of-skype/ -
Facebook
Facebook, originally launched as thefacebook.com, was created by four students at Harvard University. Mark Zuckerburg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes developed what was to become the world's largest social media site, even almost 15 years after its launch. thefacebook.com allowed for status and photo uploads and instant messaging, and as the years passed, several new features would be added. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/25/media.newmedia -
Myspace
Myspace, developed by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, created a platform that would be used for years, and there was so much innovation in the creation of this site. Users were able to create their own personal profile, upload pictures to share with their friends list, post status updates, and publish and discover new music. At the time, Myspace is how several different artists were recognized and transformed into iconic music legends of the time.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Myspacecom -
YouTube
The URL for YouTube was created on February 14th, 2005, with the ability to upload videos coming a little later in April of tat year. Created by Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley, YouTube was the first place where videos could be shared as the prime service of the website. Later, features such as HD video capabilities and ads on their videos, which allowed for the users who uploaded videos to the site to start receiving income.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/10/the-history-of-youtube/ -
Twitter
Twitter was created on March 21, 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and other co-workers. Similar to Facebook and other social media platforms popular at the time, Twitter was created to share statuses with an original character limit of 140 to comply with SMS standards, since Twitter was originally created as a text-based platform where you were able to text in your status updates. It was later doubled to a 280 character limit.
https://www.lifewire.com/history-of-twitter-3288854 -
Instagram
In 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger created Instagram, a platform which allowed users to share captioned and filtered pictures. Later in it's life, Instagram expanded to allow for multiple photos per post and video sharing capabilities, and even later updated to allow users to share "stories" to keep up with another social media platform.
http://time.com/4408374/instagram-anniversary/ -
Snapchat
Evan Spiegel created Snapchat as a way to allow it's users to share pictures and videos with other users that delete themselves once their set time limit is up. Snapchat later released it's "story" concept, which allowed people to share snaps for their entire friends lists to view. This idea became popular and other forms of social media came to follow.
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/history-of-snapchat -
Tinder
Tinder, created by is a social media online dating platform. It allows users to "match" with other users that are nearby in hopes of sparking a romantic connection. Online dating has become more and more prevalent, and Tinder remains one of the most used online dating services. The platform allows people to upload pictures of themselves and provide a brief biography to allow other to see if they would be interested in matching with the user. https://www.sutori.com/story/the-history-of-tinder
