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Period: to
10 years of Social Networks
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2001
May 1
Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, launches. November
StumbleUpon, a website that recommends web content to its users, begins. -
2002
March 22
Friendster, considered the granddaddy of social networks, launches. November
Technorati, a search engine for blogs, goes live. -
2003
May
LinkedIn begins. LinkedIn strives to be known as a business-related social networking site used by professionals from its inception. May 23
Wordpress, a publishing platform that hosts blogs, is released. -
2004
January
Myspace is launched. January 4
Google begins Gmail. February
Flickr, an image and video hosting website, goes live. March 1
Facebook, a social networking service which began at Harvard, expands to other universities. October
Yelp, a social networking site where users can review local businesses, begins. December 5
DIGG, a social news website, goes live. December 30
Facebook reaches one million members. -
2005
February
Youtube, a video-sharing website, goes live. July
Mashable, a news website and blog, goes live. September 2
Facebook becomes available to high schools in the United States. October 1
Facebook becomes available in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. -
2006
June
Myspace becomes the most popular social networking site in the United States. July 15
Twitter, a website for mini-blogging and social networking, begins. September 5
Facebook launches its news feed feature to a mixed reaction. Users are not used to their every move being tracked in one general stream. September 10
Google acquires Youtube. October 4
WikiLeaks, which publishes submissions from anonymous sources, begins. -
2007
March 1
Facebook reaches one million active users in the UK. May
StumbleUpon is acquired by eBay. May 24
Facebook starts allowing developers to use the site as a platform for games and widgets, leading to the success of popular games such as Farmville, Bejeweled Blitz, and Mafia Wars. July 29
Apple releases the iPhone in the United States. iPhone users can access social media sites and apps through their phone. -
2008
April
Facebook becomes the most popular social networking site, surpassing Myspace which had been in first place since June 2006. July
Facebook Connect is revealed. Facebook Connect enables users to log onto third-party websites, applications, gaming systems, and mobile devices. July 4
TweetDeck begins. TweetDeck is a desktop application for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, and other social networking sites. October 7
The App store opens via iTunes. -
2009
January
Twitter becomes the third-highest-ranking social networking site. Its previous ranking was 22. March 11
Foursquare, a location-based social networking website, goes live. June 25
When Michael Jackson dies, Twitter servers crash after users send 100,000 tweets per hour. September
Wordpress reaches 202 million users. October
Flicker hosts more than 4 billion images. -
2010
February
Twitter users are sending 50 million tweets per day. April
Facebook now delivers more than half of all U.S. social medial referral traffic June
Twitter users are sending 65 million tweets per day, roughly 750 tweets per second. July 6
Lady Gaga becomes the first living person to have 10 million friends on Facebook. She is second overall only to Michael Jackson who has 14 million friends. November
WikiLeaks begins releasing U.S. State department diplomatic cables.