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MySpace is Created
MySpace was founded by Tom Anderson, Chris DeWolfe, and Jon Hart. It had 50.6 million viewers in 2015. -Alexandra Cummings -
Friendster Launches
Friendster had 3 million users within its first few months. – Colleen Gaffney -
LinkedIn Launches
LinkedIn is online networking for business professionals founded by Reid Hoffman. -Amanda Frantisak -
LinkedIn Reaches 1 Million Users
-Amanda Frantisak -
Mark Zuckerburg Launches Facebook
Zuckerburg, a Harvard student at the time, originally intended Facebook to be used for Harvard students to be able to communicate with one another. -Anna Custer -
High School Students are Allowed to Join Facebook
Facebook was originally created for the use of Harvard students to communicate, and soon developed into a platform for all Ivy-League schools. Then in 2005, Facebook was offered to high schools students. About a year later, any person 13 or older could have an account. Zuckerberg began to see the value in what he created, and realized it was becoming bigger than he ever expected. -Anna Custer -
YouTube is Launched
YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Originally named “Tune In, Hook Up”, this website was supposed to be a dating service, but that eventually failed. What succeeded, however, was the video sharing platform that was coupled with the dating service, renamed YouTube. -Rebecca Geiser -
Facebook Rejects Yahoo’s Buy-out Offer
Yahoo offered Zuckerberg one billion dollars to buy Facebook, but Zuckerberg denied. He obviously saw the worth in his company and made a good decision, being that he now has a net worth of 82.9 billion. -Anna Custer -
YouTube is Purchased by Google
YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.56 billion in stock, which was Google’s second biggest acquisition at the time. Right before the acquisition from Google, YouTube’s popularity grew to 100 million videos that were being watched by 20 million frequent users. It has continued to grow in popularity ever since. -Rebecca Geiser -
Time Magazine Names YouTube it’s Annual “Person of the Year”
The honor was awarded to some of the user-created content, the creators of the site and some of the content creators. -Rebecca Geiser -
Twitter is Founded
Twitter was founded by three aspiring entrepreneurs, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey. The original code name for the service was “twttr.” Once the domain was purchased, the name was then changed to what it is now today; Twitter. Dorsey was the first user to send out a tweet, it being: “just setting up my twttr.” -Tyler Oswald -
The First YouTube Awards are held
These awards were given out in recognition for the best videos uploaded in the previous year; the YouTube community voted for all of the winners of the awards. -Rebecca Geiser -
YouTube Launches Partnership Program with Popular Creators
The program is explained as: YouTube provides the platform for the creators and the creators provided the videos, resulting is a mutually exclusive relationship. This is how many famous YouTubers gained attention through the website. -Rebecca Geiser -
Hashtags come to Twitter
Chris Messina proposed the idea of using hashtags to Twitter, suggesting that it would make it easier to filter tweets by topics (hashtags). -Tyler Oswald -
Facebook Reaches 100 Million Subscribers
-Anna Custer -
Twitter CEO Steps Down
Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO, becoming Chairman of the board. Following this, fellow founder Evan Williams steps up and takes the role as CEO. -Tyler Oswald -
Facebook Shuts Down Beacon as part of a Class-Action Lawsuit Settlement
In the years prior, Facebook users found out that their information was being shared via the use of Beacon, which is a company that take's users’ search and browsing info and gives it to companies to use for advertising. For example, if someone watches skateboarding videos, Beacon gives that information to companies to to display advertisements on skateboards to them. This resulted in a class-action lawsuit resulting in Zuckerberg making a public apology and shutting down Beacon. -Anna Custer -
Twitter Launches Promoted Tweets
Promoted Tweets are Twitter’s form of advertising that would appear in search results. Twitter tries to keep these tweets relevant to the user’s interests. -Tyler Oswald -
Pinterest is Created
Pinterst was created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sicarra, and Even Sharp. Pinterest has 250 million users and is the fastest growing website by overall member growth. -Alexandra Cummings -
Instagram Launches on iOS
It was originally created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger as a mobile check-in app called Burbn. The duo wanted something unique and decided to focus their app on photo-sharing, ultimately renaming it Instagram. Mike Krieger posted the first photo on Instagram on July 16, 2010. – Colleen Gaffney -
Instagram Introduces Hashtags
Hashtags help users to easily find photos and as well as other users. Hashtags also help users promote their own posts and photos for other users to find. – Colleen Gaffney -
Snapchat Launches
Snapchat launched (originally named Picaboo). The app sported content which would disappear 24 hours after being posted. – Colleen Gaffney -
Twitter Reaches it's 5th Anniversary
By this point, Twitter stated that each week, 1 billion tweets are sent out from it’s users. Twitter also launches it’s “TweetDeck” feature, where it takes in world news in real time, delivering it to user’s Twitter feeds in real time. Tweetdeck now allows users to manage multiple Twitter accounts. -Tyler Oswald -
Friendster Transitions to a Social Gaming Site
Friendster transitioned from being a social networking site to becoming a social gaming site. User accounts were preserved, and users could still log in, though they may have lost things like photos, messages, comments, blogs and groups. Users had until June 27, 2011 to export photos from their account before they were removed from the site. – Colleen Gaffney -
Users Share Over 1 Billion Photos on Snapchat
– Colleen Gaffney -
Twitter Changes it's Logo
Twitter changes its logo from a lowercase “t” to a simplified bird. This change was vital as the bird became one of the most recognizable logos on the internet. -Tyler Oswald -
Instagram is Released for Android
Instagram had more than one million downloads in less than a day to Android phones. – Colleen Gaffney -
Facebook Offers to Buy Instagram
Facebook offered to buy Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. The deal officially closed on Sept. 6, 2012 with Facebook buying Instagram for $300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock. Facebook promised Instagram would continue to be developed independently. -Colleen Gaffney -
Facebook Goes Public
Facebook had the most anticipated IPO (initial public offering) in the history of social media launches. Facebook's IPO did not meet consumers' expectations and their stock dropped by nearly 40% in just a few months after the public launch. -Anna Custer -
Tinder is Created
Tinder was launched by Sean Rad, Justin Mateen, Jonathan Badeen, Joe Munoz, Whitney Wolf, and Chris Gylczynsji. Tinder gets 1.6 billion swipes per day. -Alexandra Cummings -
Snapchat Releases on Android
-Colleen Gaffney -
Instagram Introduces Video Sharing to the Platform
This was a new move as Instagram had only been a photo-sharing app up until that point. Videos were only 15 seconds long until Instagram increased the limit to 60 seconds in March 2016. – Colleen Gaffney -
MySpace Re-launches
MySpace introduces a redesigned website and a mobile app after being sold to Specific Media for $35 million back in 2011. -Amanda Frantisak -
Snapchat Introduces "My Story"
Snapchat created and introduced the “My Story” feature. This allowed users to create snaps into storylines chronologically for their friends to view. It soon became the most used function on the app. – Colleen Gaffney -
Twitter Launches Vine
Vine was to be like Instagram, but instead of posting photos, Vine was only capable of posting videos. -Tyler Oswald -
YouTube Red Launches
YouTube Red is a service that one subscribes to so YouTube can remove all advertisements from the subscriber’s videos. It was originally named YouTube Music Key, a service that streams music/music videos without advertisements. -Rebecca Geiser -
Twitter Implements Direct Messaging
Users can now chat with other users privately or even within group chats. -Tyler Oswald -
Pinterest Launches Buyable "Pins"
Users can select products within these special pins to purchase the items featured within the app itself. -Amanda -
Tinder Adds "Rewind"
Users can now go back to a rejected profile and correct mistaken actions. -
Friendster Suspends Services
Friendster suspended all services due to lack of engagement on the platform. – Colleen Gaffney -
Instagram Stories is Launched
This allowed users to add photos and videos with effects, layers and text to their stories for other users to view. A user’s story expired 24 hours after being posted. Many viewed this as Instagram’s answer to the popular app Snapchat. – Colleen Gaffney -
A.me Launches in China
Originally launched in China as ‘A.me’ by ByteDance, a Beijing-based technology company. A.me would be rebranded to ‘Douyin’ in December 2016 and would later become "TikTok". – Colleen Gaffney -
Twitter Shuts Down the Twitter Dashboard
-Tyler Oswald -
TikTok Launches to International Markets
TikTok was launched to international markets outside of China in September 2017. (Note: TikTok and Douyin, though similar, run on separate servers as to comply with Chinese censorship restrictions.) – Colleen Gaffney -
Instagram Introduces Story Highlights
“Story Highlights” which served as permanent stories on user profiles. Story highlights functioned the same as Instagram Stories, however they did not expire. They are found on a user’s profile below their bios and before their photos. – Colleen Gaffney -
Instagram Launches IGTV
IGTV allows users to upload videos up to 10 minutes in length. Popular users and verified users are permitted to upload videos up to 60 minutes in length. – Colleen Gaffney -
Twitter Increases Character Count
Twitter increased the Tweet character count from 140 to 280, allowing users to type more into their tweets. -Tyler Oswald -
Friendster Shuts Down
Friendster, as a company, is shut down and dissolved. – Colleen Gaffney -
TikTok becomes Available in U.S.
TikTok became available in the United States after it merged with the app Musical.ly. – Colleen Gaffney -
Tinder Adds Panic Button
The new addition was added to improve the safety of U.S. users while on dates and also to help prevent catfishing.
