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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.
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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.
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LastFM was the first musical database and also offered online streaming as well.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
