History of Social Media

Hand Written Messages

550 BCE

These were messages written and delivered by hand.

The Telegraph was Invented

1792

The telegraph was able to transport short messages from very long distances.

The Pneumatic Post

1865

This used underground tubes that carried capsules from one place to another.

ARPAN

1969

This was the military's attempt at social media that tried to connect universities proto-internet.

IRCs

1990

IRCs ,which stood for Internet Relay Chat, were used in 1988 but carried over and was popular in the 1990s.

More Personal Computers

1990

Computers especially became more private in the 90s.

SixDegrees

1997

This was the first recognizable social media site that allowed users to upload a profile and make friends with other users.

The First Blogging Sites

1999

This became popular quickly and is still to this day because of all the unlimited social interactions and personal video and chat stories.

Friendster

2002

This was a site that was made to compete with SixDegrees with the same features.

LinkedIn

2002

This site was focused for Professional Networking.

Myspace

2003

It started as a file storage platform, but it quickly transitioned to a social media site.

Facebook

2004

This was a site launched by Mark Zuckerberg and was originally for Harvard students but transitioned to a completely public social media site.

Instagram

2010

This is a site that is only for posting pictures and it was the first social media site to only focus on that.

Snapchat

2011

This was a site that had its own unique feature that let people take filtered pictures and send them to friends then disappear shortly after.

Twitter

2013

This was a site that let users post pictures and posts that were limited only to 140 characters each.

Vine

2013

This was a site that let people share short and funny clips of themselves to friends.