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1st Social Network Launched: Six Degrees
Six Degrees was a social networking site created by Andrew Weinreich. The networking site focused on the creation of personal user profiles and the ability to connect to "friends"(Queensland Parliament, 2018). Terminated in 2000, the patent sold to a man who later becomes the creator of LinkedIn (Horek, 2018). Despite the platform's failure; Weinreich claims that timing was the cause (Warner, 2018). Image Accredited to: BrightHub, 2008 -
LiveJournal Blogging Domain Launched
In 1999, Brad Fitzpatrick launched LiveJournal a completely customizable blogging platform (Hoffman, 2018). The site had quick success due to its creation during the blogging era. The site was sold to a Russia media company in 2007 as a result of its mostly Russian-user base(Dewey, 2014). Now, however, the site is not doing well, losing more and more users every year a sad comparison to its peak activity in 2005, with approximately 2.5 million active users(Dewey, 2014). -
LunarStorm is Launched
LunarStorm was a re-launch of an older Swedish social network that failed to take off. The site was targeted towards early teens as a way to communicate across distance and share photos(McFadden, Miley and Papadopoulos, 2017). The site was one of the first social networks to be funded by marketing and advertisement ventures and as a result, struggled to reach economic stability and eventually closed in 2010 (Boyd and Ellison, 2007)(Twingly, 2010). -
Friendster Network Launches
Officially launched in 2002 by Jonathan Abrams. Designed to allow friends and family to connect. The site was arranged as a community orientated network, designed to allow users to follow the activities of their friends (Fiegerman, 2014). In its heyday, it boasted 65 million+ users(McMillan, 2013). Due to a rapid activity decline, Friendster's connectivity was closed down and eventually relaunching as a gaming website in 2011(McMillan, 2013). Image Accredited to Dana,2014, -
LinkedIn Launched
LinkedIn is a professional social network that hoasts 562 million + users globally. The site was launched by its founder Reid Hoffman in 2002 with goals to increase the economic profitability to its members. The site connects members of the workforce with employers (LinkedIn, 2018). The company was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for approximately 26 million(Hempell, 2017).
Image Accredited to Wikimedia,2018
Acquired Via: Creative Commons -
Myspace Launched
Created by Tom Anderson & Chris DeWolfe to connect friends, express interests, photos + find romantic partners(Britannica, 2018). Would later become the o.g. Facebook and goes on to be sold twice, once in 2005 to News Corp. for $500 million and then again in 2011 to Specific Media and Justin Timberlake (???? idk either) for $35 million(Britannica, 2018)(Stenovec, 2011). Activity began to decline after FB's launch. Accredited To: Wikimedia Commons, 2013.
Acquired Via: Creative Commons -
Facebook Launched
Created by Mark Zuckerberg; the social networking site was limited to the ivy-league colleges of America before skyrocketing into the international market. Zuckerberg has turned down offers as high as 2 billion to sell the company. it has developed recently to include story, calls and selling features, It's smooth sailing from here until 2015 (check out my blog on the Cambridge Analytica Scandal)(Boyd, 2018).
Image Accredited to: Wikipedia
Accessed Via: Creative Commons -
Youtube Launched
Created by Jawed Karim, Steve Chen & Chad Hurley in 2005. The platform took off quickly and was sold to Google less than a year later for approximately 1.65 billion (yes billion...not bad for a year's work). Since then the platform has expanded globally and is estimated to support 1.3 billion users. The site allows users to watch and upload videos and subscribe to the channels that create them (Ace X, 2016). Image Accredited to Wikipedia
Accessed Via Creative Commons -
Twitter Launched
Created as a side project by Jack Dorsey that became one of the biggest networking sites to date. Originally intended to be SMS based, Twitter evolved to become a public broadcasting network that today broadcasts news, opinions, announcements and celebrity arguments. To put the scale into perspective: the monthly user-based activity rose to 200 million accounts... 200 million (McArthur, 2018). Image Accredited to: Pixabay
Acquired Via: Creative Commons -
Tumblr Launched
Created by 17 y/old David Karp in his mother's apartment the small start-up became a billion dollar idea. Allowing the creativity of users to flow through images, videos, giphs, memes, music, and blogs. Since Instagram's launch user activity has declined an and Karb sold the company to Yahoo in 2013. The site still exists but with a dwindling popularity (Bereznak et al., 2017)(Halliday, 2012). Image Accredited To: WikiMedia Commons
Acquired Via: Creative Commons -
FriendFeed Launched
Created by ex-Google employees: Jim Norris and Bret Taylor. The site was a combination of Netflix and Twitter, a place where people could discuss the video content of movies and television(Stanford University, 2009). Gaining enough momentum to attract attention; Facebook acquired the site in 2009. Reportedly paying 47.5 million. The site was closed in 2015 due to lack of activity(Moscaritolo, 2015), Image Accredited To: Wikimedia Commons
Accessed Via: Creative Commons -
Spotify Launched
Created by Daniel Ek in Europe before being launched in the US Market. The site allows users to stream and create playlists of their favorite music for a membership fee. An estimated net-worth of 20 billion dollars the company is expected to grow further and do so quickly. To date, its largest issues are copyright and royalty issues (Bahler, 2018). Image Accredited To: Wikimedia Commons
Accessed Via: Creative Commons -
Pinterest Launched
Created by another ex-Google employee Ben Silberman. Pinterest had a slow start, only acquiring 200 users in 4 months. Now the virtual pinboard for creative ideas is estimated to be work 7.7 billion with an approximated 17 million + users. Differentiated from the other networks the site acquires 400% more marketing-generated revenue than Twitter & Facebook (Carson, 2012)(Fundable, 2018)(Anderson, 2018). Image Accredited To: Wikimedia Commons
Accessed Via: Creative Commons -
Instagram Launched
Created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. First, of its kind the site boasts 1 billion +users with an estimated worth of billions. Allowing users to upload photos, videos, stories and direct message in both private and publicised ways. It has come along way from crippling under mass-user activity to where it is today: one of the most influential and widely used platforms in the world (Lagorio-Chafkin, 2018)(Cutler, 2012). Image Accredited to Wikimedia Commons
Accessed Via Creative Commons -
Snapchat Launched
Created by Evan Spiegel and his friends back in 2011 the site has expanded from friend and family com. to a business, campaign and influencer essential. Since its creation, its competitors Insta & FB have launched similar features to keep up with the giant. Zuckerberg has tried to buy the app multiple times and failed. Snap is here to stay and readily expanding with its repertoire of filters (Vaynerchuk, 2015)(Bernazzani, 2017). Image Accredited to: Pixabay
Accessed Via: Creative Commons -
Vine Launched
Created by Dom Hofman, Rus Yusopov, and Colin Kroll. The site allowed users to publicly share videos that linked to Twitter and email accounts. Bought by Twitter early on the platform couldn't compete with the competitors, shutting down in 2016. O.g. Creator: Hoffman has rumoured the return of the site in a new form V2 - guess we'll just have to wait and see (Smith, 2014) (Moreau, 2018). Image Accredited To: Wikimedia Commons
Accessed Via: Creative Commons
