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Sixdegrees.com
This website, founded by Andrew Weinreich, is considered the first ever social networking site. It was launched in 1997 and featured a lot of the same things we see on Facebook including profiles and friends lists. The site had millions of users but Internet service was limited at the time so networks were also limited.
-CBS News. (2019). Then and Now: A History of Social Networking. Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/then-and-now-a-history-of-social-networking-sites/2/ -
Friendster
Friendster was founded by Jonathan Abrams and Peter Chin and was very successful at engaging the mainstream and making it easy to find friends. It was also known as a "safe" place for online dating. Eventually it became more of a gaming platform after it was outdone by sites such as MySpace.
-CBS News. (2019). Then and Now: A History of Social Networking. Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/then-and-now-a-history-of-social-networking-sites/4/ -
LinkedIn
This social networking site was founded by Reid Hoffman and his co-founders. The site is meant to connect professionals, which is something most social networking sites don't do, and has hundreds of millions of members worldwide. Members can upload their resumes to the site and showcase their professional experience to prospective employers.
-LinkedIn Newsroom. (2019) About us. Retrieved from: https://news.linkedin.com/about-us#company-history -
Facebook
Facebook is THE most popular social networking site in the world with billions of members across the globe. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues at Harvard and spread rapidly to other colleges. On Facebook, users have profiles where they can display their content, send messages, share and like posts, and much more, making the majority of its money from ads.
-Hall, Mark. (2008). Facebook. Retrieved from Encyclopaedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Facebook -
YouTube
YouTube was founded by former PayPal workers, Jawed Karim and associates. The platform allows users to upload videos for streaming at any time and billions of videos are watched on the site every day. In 2006, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. It is the second most used search engine in the world.
-Fitzpatrick, Laura. (2010). Brief History YouTube. Retrieved from Time: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1990787,00.html -
Twitter
Twitter was launched by Jack Dorsey and co-founders originally for SMS with a social networking aspect. Users "tweet" small messages and it has a huge competitive edge due to its ability to spread information so quickly. Like Facebook, Twitter gets most of its money through ads. Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world.
-Encyclopaedia Britannica, Editors. (2009). Twitter. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Twitter -
WhatsApp
Founded by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, this messaging platform became extremely popular between 2009 and 2013, when it was bought out by Facebook. It was extremely popular due to the fact that it was free for all users and was ad-free. Facebook bought WhatsApp due to their competitive edge against them.
-LogoMyWay. (2017). The History of Whatsapp and Their Logo Design. Retrieved from: http://blog.logomyway.com/history-whatsapp-logo-design/ -
Instagram
This platform was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in and was an instant success, with millions of members joining in under 2 months. Instagram was also bought by Facebook in 2012. The platform now has hundreds of millions of users posting pictures and videos, sharing things on their stories, and messaging and calling.
-Eudaimonia. (2017). How Instagram Started. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/@obtaineudaimonia/how-instagram-started-8b907b98a767 -
SnapChat
This messaging and photo sharing app was created by Evan Spiegel and associates at Stanford University. The app is unique because it features "disappearing" messages and photos, the first of its kind.
-Molloy, Mark. (2017). Who Owns SnapChat and When Was It Created? Retrieved from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/0/owns-snapchat-created/ -
THE SELFIE
Selfies weren't necessarily "invented" in 2013; they've actually been around since the 1800's. In 2013, the "selfie" was just at its peak. They are extremely significant because of their prominence all over social media with hundreds of millions of posted images branded with #selfie.
-Backer, Emma. (2017). History of the Selfie: A Photo Phenomenon. Retrieved from: https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/new-york/articles/history-of-the-selfie-a-photo-phenomenon/ -
Filters
SnapChat introduced filters, and the Internet went wild! Filters are part of the app and include things like the classic dog ears. Filters are now available on Instagram and other platforms as well. This is significant because it has altered human perceptions of each other and themselves on social media and is extremely prominent in our culture today.
-Phrasee. (2018). The History of Social Media: A Timeline. Retireved from: https://phrasee.co/the-history-of-social-media-a-timeline/ -
TikTok
TikTok is extremely new (obviously) and is used for sharing short videos on the platform. TikTok fills your newsfeed before you even have a single friend and provides prompts for videos to get you started. Users can also replay to other videos with videos. It is a creative space and is "changing the way our social media works."
-Herrman, John. (2019). How TikTok is Rewriting the World. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/style/what-is-tik-tok.html
