History of Social Media

CBBS

Sep 11, 1978

Ward Christensen is credited with founding the Computerized Bulletin Board System, which provides an opportunity for online exchange of information.
http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2444

CompuServe

Sep 8, 1979

CompuServe provided an opportunity for businesses to utilize dial-up internet.
www.wired.com

First Use of Cookies

Oct 1, 1994

Netscape first used cookies to simply check whether visitors to their website had already visited before http://www.cookiecentral.com/faq/

Six Degrees

Sep 11, 1997

One of the earliest (possibly THE earliest) social media sites founded by Andrew Weinreich; didn't do well partially due to a low number of people with internet access. http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/then-and-now-a-history-of-social-networking-sites/2/

Friendster

Sep 11, 2002

Founded by Jonathan Abrams and Peter Chin in 2002; attempted to make connections between strangers, ultimately could not keep up with demand/technology http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/then-and-now-a-history-of-social-networking-sites/4/

LinkedIn Launches

May 5, 2003

LinkedIn first launches online as a business contact information site. https://www.linkedin.com/about-us

MySpace

Aug 11, 2003

Social networking site where users created personal profiles and could interact with each other through messaging and comments; eventually declined once Facebook was introduced http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/then-and-now-a-history-of-social-networking-sites/7/

Twitter

Mar 11, 2006

"Microblogging platform" in which users can post short messages; today is used by average citizens, politicians, celebrities, businesses, etc. http://socialnomics.net/2013/01/23/the-history-of-twitter/

Introduction of #hashtag

Jul 2, 2009

Twitter starts linking hashtags in tweets to Twitter search results for the hashtagged word https://techcrunch.com/2009/07/02/twitter-makes-hashtags-more-useful/

Google Play Takes Over Android

Mar 6, 2012

Google Play launches and joins together Android Market, Google Music and other Google based services for Android devices. https://techcrunch.com/2012/03/06/goodbye-android-market-hello-google-play/

Facebook acquires Instagram

Apr 12, 2012

In the long list of Facebook purchases, Instagram was purchased for $1 billion. This was about 25% of Facebook's cash on hand http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/facebook-buys-instagram-for-1-billion/?_r=0

Snapchat Hits 1 Billion Shared Photos

Nov 28, 2012

6 months after their first blog post, Snapchat announces that users had shared over 1 billion shared photos on the iOS app. http://internetbusiness-howto.com/snapchat-history-and-facts