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ICQ or "I seek you"
is a site that was launched in 1996. ICQ was one of the first trueInstant Messaging sites to be widely accepted and used. It allowed users to be able to have one-on-one conversations. By: Paul Potemski -
Bolt.com
is a site that launched in 1996. This Social Media site was created for a teen aged audience. It allowed users to create photo albums, send IM, e-cards and blogs. It also originally offered an email service to it’s users. By: Paul Potemski -
Sixdegrees.com
a social networking site that launched in 1997. This site used the six degrees of separation concept to grow user’s networks. Much like today’s LinkedIn, it offered connection opportunities based on connections of the user’s current connect ion list. The site also allowed users to send messages to each other and post on bulletin boards. By: Paul Potemski -
AOL Instant Messaging
an instant messaging site that launched in 1997. The “Running Man” icon and the robotic “You’ve got mail” was the first cool kids must have from the internet that I remember. It allowed registered users to send instant messages in real time. When you heard the “You’ve got mail” notification, you had no choice but run to your computer to see who messaged you. By: Paul Potemski -
Open Diary
is a site that launched in 1998. It was the first time that online journal keepers had the ability to share their own thoughts and writings and view other people’s journals as well. Users could also respond to those writing much like today’s blogs and blog comments. By: Paul Potemski -
Drudge Report
Information Technology, entertainment, politics, and DNA science converged with President Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Whispers of the relationship were first reported by Matt Drudge, of the Drudge Report, a homespun politics blog that started as email notes sent out to a few friends By: Monica Patton -
Napster
Napster wasn't the first network that distributed files across the Internet, but it did pave the way for the media streaming revolution by pillaging music! Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, Napster's user-friendly interface made it easy for music lovers to download copies of older songs, unreleased recordings, studio recordings, and concert bootleg recordings.
"The History Of Social Media: 29+ Key Moments." https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/
By: Monica Patton -
AdWords
Back when Google was a much smaller search engine, and desktops reigned supreme, Google launched AdWords, a Do-It-Yourself, pay-per-click, search-advertising program with a self-serve keyword bidding system. It was a game-changer for online advertising. In 2019, Google's advertising revenue was over $116 billion.
Google Adwords Turns 15: A Look Back At The Origins Of A $60 Billion Business.
By: Monica Patton -
Hot or Not
On this site users submitted photos of themselves and other users rated their attractiveness. By: Ally Temsey -
Windows Messenger Launches
Features included instant messaging, presence awareness, support for Session Initiation Protocol, file transfer, application sharing, and white boarding. By: Ally Temsey -
Friendster
Before Friendster was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members,maintain, and share content. The website was also used for dating and discovering new events, bands and hobbie. By: Ally Temsey -
Myspace
Social Media Website that had a significant influence on technology, pop culture and music. eUniverse employees saw potential in the social site “Friendster” and decided to mimic a new site with more popular features. This new mimicked site was called “MySpace.” By: Ally Temsey -
Facebook
Most popular social networking site known to date. The site was initially limited to Harvard Students only, but the site expanded through the years to other universities,high schools, and now anyone over the age of thirteen. Some features include news feeds, a like button, instant messaging, privacy controls, etc. By: Ally Temsey -
Reddit
Features include social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. By: Ally Temsey -
Youtube
Three former PayPal employees launched YouTube, a failed dating site re-imagined as a free video-sharing website. Co-founder Jawed Karim starred in the very first YouTube Video; 'Me at the zoo. A low-quality video that, at last count, has racked up over ninety-eight thousand views By: Monica Patton -
Twitter
Who can forget Covfefe? @realDonaldTrump wish we would! The micro-blogging service, Twitter, created a new way of mass communication and powered Donald Trumps' trajectory towards the presidency. #groundbreaking By: Monica Patton -
iPhone
Steve Jobs released the highly anticipated iPhone as a "widescreen iPod with touch controls,"; a "revolutionary mobile phone,"; and a "breakthrough Internet communicator." All for the price of $499.00. Thousands of people stood in line to get one.
En.wikipedia.org. 2020.Iphone
https://www.zdnet.com/article/technology-that-changed-us-the-2000s/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/ https://www.cnet.com/news/when-iphone-met-world-7-years-ago-today/
By: Monica Patton -
Tumblr
Tumblr, a popular social networking site, launches on February 19, 2007. The website was founded by David Karp and Marco Arment and allows users to post blogs and follow others. The platform allows for short form blogs which can also be made private.
By: James Max VanFleet
Source:https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2015/today-in-media-history-david-karp-and-marco-arment-launched-tumblr-in-2007/ -
The Birth of the Hashtag
The hashtag was brought to social media through Twitter on August 23, 2007. Before the hashtag was created, the “Pound” symbol had been used in many different ways over the internet. It was created as a way of grouping content, and later became popular in 2009.
By: James Max VanFleet
Source:https://buffer.com/resources/a-concise-history-of-twitter-hashtags-and-how-you-should-use-them-properly -
Facebook Overtakes Myspace
In 2008 Facebook surpassed Myspace in the number of unique worldwide visitors. Later, in 2009, Facebook surpassed the platform in the number of unique U.S. visitors. Since this time the company has been purchased by several different entities and for five years was owned, in part, by Justin Timberlake.
Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace
Photo: http://www.simplethingcalledlife.com/stcl/myspace-buy-facebook/
By: Erika Stafford -
Weibo
Weibo was a Chinese site that launched in 2009, and was meant to be a combination of Facebook and Twitter. The site was launched at the same time that Facebook and Twitter were banned in China. It has 340 million users and it one of the most popular social media networks in China to this day.
By: James Max VanFleet
Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/ -
Pinterest
a photo sharing website that launched in 2010, where users can upload images known as “pins” and then other users can “pin” or save these images on to their personalized “boards” Created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp in San Francisco, California (Wikkipedia.com). Watermark logo developed by Michael Deal and Juan Carlos Pagan. By: Stephanie Rusinko -
Instagram
Instagram, a photo and video sharing social media network, launches on October 6, 2010. The site was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and allows users to “Like” people’s photos. Instagram quickly became popular, gaining 10 million users within one year of launch.
By: James Max VanFleet
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram -
Quora
Quora, a platform that allows for questions to be answered, launches on June 21, 2010. The website allows users to ask questions and to suggest edits to both questions and answers. The website was created by former Facebook employees and was praised because of the quality of answers it provided users with.
By: James Max VanFleet
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quora -
Snapchat
launched in 2011, it is a multimedia messaging app where users send pictures and messages that disappear after a short amount of time. It was developed by Snap Inc. and created by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown. The app includes a variety of features for not only photo and message sharing, but also allows video sharing lasting up to 24 hours, as well as a “Discover” feature for branding and advertising purposes. (Wikkipedia.com). By: Stephanie Rusinko -
Tinder
is an online dating app starting in 2012, which allows users to anonymously “swipe” to like or dislike other people’s profiles to then be paired or matched up with another user where they can then message eachother. Tinder was founded by Arun Gopan, Sean Rad, Jonathan Badeen, Justin Mateen, Joe Munoz, Dinesh Moorjani and Whitney Wolfe Herd (Wikkipedia.com). Logo created by Tinder (https://1000logos.net/tinder-logo/). By: Stephanie Rusinko -
Vine
a short-form video service where users could share a seven second video clip that looped. The videos were published through Vine’s own platform but could be shared via Facebook and Twitter and was used to not just post videos, but to be grouped by theme and display what was trending. It was originally founded by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll. (Wikkipedia.com). By: Stephanie Rusinko -
Selfie
Twitter declared that 2014 was considered the “Year of the Selfie” because of Ellen DeGeneres’s Oscar photo that had been retweeted more than three million times, which essentially set a Twitter record and even won Twitters award for the “Golden Tweet” of the year (https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/). Ellen DeGeneres’s Oscar photo posted on Twitter in 2014 (https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/). By: Stephanie Rusinko -
Periscope
is an American live video streaming app for Android and iOS developed by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein in 2015. It is an easy-to-use app for streaming and watching live events, and it was actually sold to Twitter prior to its launch. (Wikkipedia.com/https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/). Logo created by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein (https://1000logos.net/periscope-logo/). By: Stephanie Rusinko -
Friendster Shuts Down
At the end of 2015 Friendster shut down after almost fourteen years. During its time it shifted from a social networking site to a social entertainment site in an effort to change with the evolving industry. However, in the end the platform closed due to lack of engagement.
Content:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendster#
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_social_media
Photo: https://news.abs-cbn.com/-depth/04/27/11/friendster-admits-defeat-facebook
By: Erika Stafford -
Periscope Part 2
Meerkat was the first app to popularize live streaming. However, Twitter developed Periscope and the two began a public battle for dominion over one another. Periscope was awarded the IOS app of the year in 2015.
Content: https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/
By: Erika Stafford -
Vine Defunction
Vine announced that twitter would be discontinuing the Vine mobile app. Vine was a social networking service where users shared seven second long looping video clips. By: Ally Temsey -
Fake News
“Information warfare” was waged during the 2016 US presidential election. Disinformation, false claims and conspiracy theories were spread over social media channels. Facebook later revealed that 126 million of its American users were exposed to content spread by agents from Russia.
Content: https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/
Photo: https://www.dw.com/en/eu-tells-social-media-giants-to-combat-fake-news-or-face-new-regulations/a-43552205
By: Erika Stafford -
Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn
As of December 2016 Microsoft wholly owns the business and professional social networking site. The California based site originally launched in 2003 and offered its first public shares in 2011.
Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_social_media
Photo: https://www.litmus.com/blog/5-ways-microsofts-acquisition-of-linkedin-impacts-email-users-and-email-marketers/?utm_campaign=observations_microsoftlinkedin&utm_source=twitter\
By: Erika Stafford -
Facebook rolls out live
Facebook unveiled its live streaming features in 2016. While adding live streaming features later than other platforms, it had ensured the success of its product by partnering with large media outlets, such as Buzzfeed, the Guardian and the New York Times.
Content: https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/
Photo: http://mediashift.org/2017/01/7-tips-publishers-going-live-facebook/
By: Erika Stafford -
Twitter Increases Character Limit
In an effort to attract more users, twitter increased the character count for tweets from 140 to 280. By: Ally Temsey -
TikTok
This short video sharing website launched in 2017. ByteDance, the Beijing based technology company that owns the service first launched Douyin, a very similar product in China in 2016 and later in 2017 launched TikTok for iOS and Android in markets outside of China.
Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_social_media
Photo: https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/tiktok-video-app-growth-867587/
By: Erika Stafford -
launch of IGTV
Instagram increased its one minute video limit to one hour and launched a whole new app, IGTV, dedicated to long-form video By: Ally Temsey -
Yahoo! Messenger Shuts Down
One of the many offerings Yahoo!, Messenger allowed for personal messages, group messages and file sharing. Later versions of the service allowed for voice and video chat. The free, online service shut down in 2018 after 20 years.
Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Messenger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_social_media
Photo: https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/end-cyber-era-iconic-yahoo-messenger-shuts-down-after-20-years-84928
By: Erika Stafford -
Google+ Defunction
Google+ shuts down due to low user engagement and an API flaw. By: Ally Temsey -
TikTok Grows
TikTok became a huge hit gaining millions of users in early 2020. TikTok is a social network where users generate videos to post on their pages. Ally Temsey
