-
Six Degrees Launches
The first social media platform Six Degrees, so named for the theory of six degrees of separation between all humans on the planet, operated from its launch in 1997 until its dissolution in 2001. This network allowed users to link an email address, curate an individual profile, and add friends to their network. -
Google is Founded
Page and Brin found Google in Menlo Park in 1998, and it will become the largest search engine in the world and the umbrella company owner of a variety of other companies and social media platforms. -
LinkedIn Founded by Hoffman, Blue, Guericke, Ly, and Valliant
LinkedIn, one of the oldest social media platforms, is founded. This site focused and continues to focus on enabling people to make professional connections with each other. It currently has more than 500 million users. -
MySpace Launches
Regarded as one of the most popular and influential early social media sites, MySpace launches in 2003. It began as a file storage platform but quickly transitioned into a social network. -
Facebook Founded
Facebook, created by Zuckerberg, McCollum, Moskovitz, and Hughes. In 2006, Facebook became available to anyone above the age of 13, after expanding beyond its Ivy League origins. Today, Facebook has over 2.3 billion active users, or 30% of the world's population. -
YouTube Founded
Created in 2005 by Hurley, Chen, and Karim, YouTube will go on to become the second most frequently visited website on the internet. -
Google buys YouTube
Google, the largest search engine on the internet by a wide margin and the most visited site on the internet, purchases YouTube, which by 2020 becomes the second most visited site on the internet. -
Twitter Launches
Twitter, a platform which gained renown for limiting users to 140 characters (a policy it maintained until 2017), now has 335 million active users. It went public in 2013 and was valued at $14.2 billion. -
First-Generation iPhone Released
Apple releases its first-generation iPhone which, through the app store, will bring social media access to the hands of millions of children and adults. -
Instagram Launches
Instagram became the first major social media platform to focus purely on photos and videos. It was available on the smartphone only, and required photos to be framed in a square (although that restriction has since been lifted). -
Facebook buys Instagram
Facebook, the largest social media platform (by its conventional definition) purchases Instagram. -
45% of the World's Population use Social Networks
Additionally, in a world of just over 7.5 billion people, 5.5 billion use mobile devices and 4.5 billion use the internet. Therefore, the reach of social media has massively expanded since its inception.
