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The PLATO system, developed at the University of Illinois and later marketed by Control Data Corporation, pioneered early social media in the 1970s with applications like Notes (forums), TERM-talk (instant messaging), Talkomatic (chat rooms), News Report (crowd-sourced newspaper), and Access Lists (user access control). In 1979, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived Usenet, which was established in 1980, marking another milestone in online communication.
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FidoNet forms as BBSs start to exchange email in North America and later internationally. -
Classmates.com, originally launched as a list of school affiliations, is launched in December 1995. The site, founded by Randy Conrads, later incorporated features to help former and current classmates find and contact each other online. -
The Swedish social networking website LunarStorm, originally called Stajlplejs, is launched in 1996. The site, founded by Rickard Eriksson, was renamed LunarStorm in 2000 and has been described as "the world's first social media on the Internet" by the founder. -
Hotline, a chat, bulletin board, and file-sharing program, is released.The Hotline client, with its graphical user interface in contrast to text-based IRC, let users connect to Hotline servers run by individuals and by corporate users like Apple and General Motors. -
Bolt.com was started as the first social networking and video website. -
Social networking website SixDegrees.com is created. -
AOL Instant Messenger is released. -
ICQ is acquired by AOL, and the service is patented. -
Open Diary launches the first social blogging network, inventing the reader comment and friends-only content. -
Yahoo! Messenger instant messaging service launches -
SixDegrees.com is purchased by YouthStream Media Networks for $125 million -
Friends Reunited exploiting a gap in the UK market following the success of US website Classmates.com -
Habbo, a game-based social networking site, launches. -
4chan, an english-language imageboard, launches, Myspace launches, and Skype, an instant messaging and video/voice calling service (VoIP), launches. -
Facebook, the most popular social networking service to-date, launches -
Reddit, an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website, launches. -
YouTube, a video-sharing website, launches. -
Twitter launches. -
Instagram, a photo/video sharing and social media service, launches, Pinterest, a photo-sharing website, launches, and Quora, a question-and-answer platform, launches. -
Snapchat, a photo/video sharing and social media service, launches and Twitch, a live-streaming service, launches. This service is a spin-off from Justin.tv, as it is more focused on broadcasting users playing video games -
Tinder, a dating-oriented social networking service, launches -
Patreon, a crowdfunding site that would later become a subscription service for content creators on social media sites, is launched. -
Discord, a free instant messaging and video/voice calling service (VoIP) designed for the gaming community, launches -
TikTok, a short video-sharing and social media service, launches. -
Musical.ly shuts down and migrates its users to TikTok. -
BeReal, a messaging application that encourages users to share a photo or video of their lives once a day during a two minute window, launches -
Truth Social, an alt-tech social media platform, is launched by former U.S. President Donald Trump after being banned from Twitter.com. -
Twitter is acquired and taken private by businessman Elon Musk in a $44 billion deal -
First post on X (formerly known as Twitter) through the Neuralink brain-computer interface