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America Online (AOL)
AOL was launched in May of 1985, but 20 years later, it was bought by Verizon for $4.4 billion. -
ICQ
ICQ was launched in Mirabilis, Israel in November of 1996. Its name comes from the phrase "I seek you," in English. -
Six Degrees
Six Degrees was launched in May of 1997 and is widely considered the very first social media networking site with features such as profiles, friend lists, etcetera. -
Weblog
Weblog ("Web-log") was launched in December of 1997. Although it was technically a blog website, it's considered a social media because of its ability to let users friend each other and communicate through blog comments. The term "blog" was also discovered because of this website. -
LinkedIn
LinkedIn was launched in December of 2002 and was actually launched for businesses and people to communicate professionally. -
Photobucket
Photobucket was launched in May of 2003. It allowed more video- and picture-posting and introduced picture albums in social medias. -
MySpace
MySpace, launched in August of 2003 and my personal favorite early-social media, allows its users to not only friend people and take pictures and videos but also allows them to blog and discover and listen to music. It's considered to have started the hype on social media. -
Flickr
Flickr was launched in February of 2004. It originally focused more on chat rooms but with Yahoo buy it at $25 million, a lot of things were changed, added, and dropped. -
TheFacebook
Notice the "The" before Facebook. TheFacebook was launched in February of 2004 but only to colleges for the students and teachers to communicate. It was basically 2004's version of Google Classroom. -
Facebook
Even though the "The" was dropped at this point, Facebook is still exclusive to schools. It released to high schools in September of 2005, still with the early-Google Classroom intentions. -
Twitter
Twitter is one of the social medias you'll find on the back of business cards, on TV and YouTube, etcetera. It allows you to type 140 characters into one text box (which in my opinion is just dumb) and promotes hashtags and pinning pictures to posts. -
Facebook
Again with Facebook, I know. In September of 2006, its finally released to the public. So many people love it to the point where it's also one of the frequently seen icons on business cards and such. As of now it allows users to friend and tag each other in posts (that DON'T limit your text characters) with the optional pictures or videos, "react" to other posts, and "like" professional pages owned by people such as YouTubers or Green Day. -
Tumblr
Tumblr was launched February of 2007. It's a social media that lets you post GIFs and pictures as well as blogs. In 2013, however, Tumblr took a hit from being bought by Yahoo. Apparently Yahoo is really trying to beat Google! Also, sometimes this can be found elsewhere with Twitter and Facebook. -
Loopt
Loopt was launched back in July of 2008. It's purposed was kind of like Google Maps today without the navigation feature as it could show you who was at a particular place (like a park, a Starbucks, etcetera) via GPS and showed tips and comments about it from other users. -
Spotify
Yes, Spotify is technically a social media. Launched in October of 2008, Spotify allows users to create profiles and scroll through feed on top of stream music. -
Blippy
Launched in December of 2009, Blippy allowed users to follow each other and post about what they buy and their thoughts about the product. In April of 2010, however, a scare was caused by a Blippy user's credit card number was found in some Google search. Then another the next day. I believe it's still active (I haven't found proof otherwise), but I wouldn't doubt it being an unpopular social media platform now. -
Pinterest
Pinterest was launched in March of 2010, and it, alongside Tumblr, became the parents of a large portion the fan art, stories, crafts, decor, etcetera online. Users can post about new ideas and recepies and such on this social media for others to see. This is another (possible) addition to the social media logos you find everywhere. -
Instagram
Oh Instagram, how I'm scrolling through your feed way too much way too often. It's launch was October of 2010, and the old or new logo for it can be found next to Facebook and Twitter on just about anything. For this social media, you can "heart," or like, different posts of others but doesn't allow text unless it's in a video or picture, which I find equally as dumb as the limited-text character thing Twitter has going on. A lot of the time, Instagram can be found on TV with other medias. -
Google+
Google+ was launched, obviously by Google, in June of 2011. It was created for anybody with a Gmail account to easily talk to other people and post about anything. It allows you to create "communities" or "groups" with other people that you want to talk to as a group. I find it pretty cool. This can also sometimes be found on cards and such with other social medias. -
Messenger
Messenger was launched in August of 2011 as an extension to Facebook. Since so many people wanted to talk in the comments section or other social medias, Messenger was thought up to be more convenient. As a feature very recently added, you can now post pictures on it as "stories" much like SnapChat (which I will get to). -
SnapChat
SnapChat was launched in September of 2011 and was very new to the scene of social media. Originally, it allowed users to friend each other and send pictures or "snaps" and allowed limited text in a caption for "chat". It still does that, but it later introduced texting for the "chat" part of the name, and even more recently "SnapChat filters" are ever popular in its constantly added and deleted fillers allowing users to make their face look like a dog, a flower, etcetera. -
Google Buzz
Ever heard of this one? Probably not. Google Buzz was launched in October of 2011 but shut down in December of that year, which is why you probably haven't heard of it. It was basically like Google+, having the ability to post pictures, videos, and links either privately or publicly. It was deleted because of a man who filed a lawsuit against it saying it was in violation of privacy laws. Maybe Google+ was its replacement?
