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History of Social Media

  • Six Degres ' Sparks the Social Media Movement

    Six Degres ' Sparks the Social Media Movement
    This website was built around the "six degrees of separation theory," thus the website allowed for creating personal connections with friends, and even evolved into messaging them as well.
  • AOL Instant Messenger Hits the Web

    AOL Instant Messenger Hits the Web
    AOL instant messenger allowed for people to talk to others they connected with online. This was the first online chat of it's kind and could only be done on desktop services.
  • Moveon.org Spun the Social Media Empoire

    Moveon.org Spun the Social Media Empoire
    moveon.org was created as an email group originally but then transformed into a social media website. This website then started leaning towards political activism in a way that they would pass around impeachment petitions for Bill Clinton​ and then evolved into more political activism being spread.
  • LiveJournal expanded Social Media

    LiveJournal expanded Social Media
    LiveJournal was a website that was focused on blogging. This website was focused on constantly updating blog posts and encouraging users to create groups where they can interact with people that they have similar connections with,
  • LunarStorm Comes into Fruition

    LunarStorm Comes into Fruition
    LunarStorm was the first commercial advertisement-financed social media to hit the market. This blew up for people between the ages of​ 12-17, and it had over 1.2 million members.
  • Friendster Began

    Friendster Began
    Friendster was like all of the social media platforms before it, but it grew into even more. It began to be used as a dating website and then eventually expanding to be a place of discovery for hobbies, and bands. It also developed social gaming, the first website to do so. It eventually ended due to a lack of interest from members after a while​.
  • LastFM made Musical Databases Thrive

    LastFM made Musical Databases Thrive
    LastFM was the first musical database and also offered online streaming as well.
  • LinkedIn Brought Business into Social Media

    LinkedIn Brought Business into Social Media
    LinkedIn enabled a growth strategy for business to put their company name and motive out there. Additionally, this is a resource that allows ​people looking for jobs to connect with other business professionals as well.
  • MySpace Began

    MySpace Began
    Myspace became "the" social media website of the time. It allowed for people to express themselves through customizing their own profiles, this website also allowed for people to use music, pictures, and videos to express themselves, they could do so by embedding these within their profile.
  • WordPress Changed Blogging for the Better

    WordPress Changed Blogging for the Better
    WordPress began to make the lives of bloggers much easier by allowing people to host their blog on their website, and they also allowed for bloggers to take a more creative path when designing.
  • Flickr & Photobucket for the Picture Platform

    Flickr & Photobucket for the Picture Platform
    Flickr and Photobucket revolutionized finding photos and editing them on the internet. This became the phase of over-editing photos with different filters and words.
  • Youtube Shocked the World

    Youtube Shocked the World
    Youtube is the biggest form of long-distance communication the web had ever seen at this point. Being able to show long-distance relatives different forms of media from across the world blew up, causing Youtube to still be a HUGE social media platform today.
  • Facebook Blossomed

    Facebook Blossomed
    Facebook blew up once it launched. As a platform to find old friends, new friends, and even connect with strange. Facebook allowed people to reach out across the world and create connections in a way that no other social media platform allowed for before. It reigned supreme for quite a while as the 6th most visited social media site until it eventually fizzled out. In recent events, they face lawsuits for data privacy violations and are attempting to rebrand their platform06.
  • Twitter Flew into the Social Media World

    Twitter Flew into the Social Media World
    Twitter grew alongside Facebook and offered members a way to directly interact with celebrities and their friends and family. It's believed that Twitter will play a vital role in the future of politics.
  • Spotify Popped Up

    Spotify Popped Up
    Spotify began streaming music for members, and for free. The market for streaming music was very small before this, but the creation of Spotify sparked competitors like AppleMusic years later as well.