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Facebook
Facebook was founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg as a school project. It was launched in 2004 for other students but later became available for everyone to use. Facebook is a social networking site where people can post status updates and photos.
~ Abby Moore -
Reddit
Reddit was launched in 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. It was originally created to be a news sharing platform. Today it is more commonly used for social commentary.
~ Abby Moore -
Twitter
Twitter was founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and others. It is a microblogging site similar to Facebook where users can share “tweets” of information and status updates as well as photos. It was later bought out by Elon Musk and the name has since been changed to “X” .
~ Abby Moore -
Pinterest
Pinterest was founded in 2010 by Ben Silbermann. It allows users to upload photos or links to blogs and “pin” them to “boards”. It became a publicly traded company in 2019.
~ Abby Moore -
Instagram
Instagram was founded in 2010 by a graduate of Stanford, Kevin Systrom. It allows users to upload pictures with captions and now even features the ability to post “stories” like on Snapchat. Instagram was purchased in 2012 by Facebook.
~ Abby Moore -
Twitch
Twitch is a livestreaming platform mostly used to share livestreams of people playing videogames. Users of twitch can subscribe to their favorite live streamers to support them by paying a monthly fee. The original website known as Justin.tv, was launched in 2007 and was renamed to Twitch in 2011 which would become the biggest livestreaming platform.
~ Alex Bailey -
Snapchat
Snapchat is an app used on mobile devices to communicate with friends. The app created by Harvard students is used to take and send pictures to friends that can be added by username. Snapchat was originally named Picaboo which inspired the ghost logo. -
Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook acquire Instagram
April 9th 2012, facebook reached an agreement with Instagram to acquire it for $1 billion dollars. The talented teams of both teams collaborated to promote growth across both platforms. Facebook decided to leave Instagram as a separate entity and grow it separately and independently. This ended up being one of the most successful transactions in social media history, as instagram has approximately one billion monthly active users and is the the second most downloaded app globally.
~ Xander Busch -
Vine
Vine is a social media app where users can post 7 second videos and create quick comedy. The short posts introduced a new way to view content online and is most likely what influenced modern social media structure with Tik Tok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Vine shut down in 2017 due to lack of funding and the idea that people did not want to view content this way.
~ Alex Bailey -
Facebook acquires WhatsApp
2014, Facebook wrapped up its $19 billion dollar acquisition of WhatsApp. The deal began in 2012 in Mark Zuckeerg’s house over the course of several days. The founders of WhatsApp, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, became billionaires when the deal was announced. The transition to being run by Facebook went smoothly and is now looked back on as one of the best deals ever struck. Experts estimate that WhatsApp generated anywhere between 5-10 billion dollars for Facebook alone, in 2020.
~ Xander Busch -
Tik Tok
Tik Tok is a social media platform where users can create and view short videos that are in an algorithm to show users relevant content. Creators of Tik Tok merged with the already popular app Musical.ly who’s content basis was similar and grew exponentially. Tik Tok is by far the most used social media by young people today.
~ Alex Bailey -
Big Tech Lawsuits
"Big tech" such as Facebook and Tik Tok were and still are facing accusations that they are harvesting user data with bad intent and pushing for harmful products and content harmful.CEO’s of these companies have had to answer many questions regarding privacy and foul content and have even been blamed for someone taking their own life due to the content displayed on their platform. These companies have never been held responsible due to users not reading the terms and conditions.
~ Alex Bailey -
Elon Musk acquires Twitter
October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk closed a $44 billion dollar deal to acquire Twitter. The transfer came with significant changes including firing multiple top executives and policy changes. Musk announced plans to make the site a safe haven for free speech and unban many people, including former president Donald Trump. Musk says he plans to privatize Twitter and eventually rebrand intp an “everything app” under the moniker of “X”. Many layoffs soon followed as a result of this move.
~ Xander Busch -
Twitter rebrands to X.
The app known as Twitter has been rebranded to X. Twitter was acquired to accelerate the plans for X, a do everything app. The app had grown past its name and needed a new one according to Musk because “you can post almost anything, including several hours of video”. Musk aims to have this rebranding be the first step to developing an American version of China’s “WeChat”, the most popular social media app in China. Musk’s vision for the app is very large and continues to grow.
~ Xander Busch -
Meta launches Threads
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, launched Threads on July 5th, 2023.Threads is a text based social media platform aiming to rival X (Twitter). In the first seven hours, Threads generated 10 million users. This is mainly due to its link with Instagram. This launch came at a heavy time of criticism for Elon Musk and X, and hoped to give users an alternative to X. Threads was not launched in the EU due to strict rules regarding the privacy of data.
~ Xander Busch