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The Telegraph
Samuel Morse and other various inventors developed the Telegraph. In 1844, Samuel Morse sent his first telegraph message from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland which revolutionized communication forever. The Telegraph laid down the basic groundwork for later innovations to come in the future.
( http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph ) -
The Telephone
On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell became the inventor of the first powered telephone. The telephone allowed people to share information with greater speed and efficiency and to connect with one another through conversation in real time.
( https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sets/the-invention-of-the-telephone/ ) -
GENie
GENie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was an online service created for GE. It had 350,000 users at its peak before the World Wide Web took over.
( https://interestingengineering.com/chronological-history-of-social-media ) -
The Palace
The Palace was an online chatroom in which people would interact with one another through a graphic online chatroom. Each user would have their own avatar.
( https://interestingengineering.com/chronological-history-of-social-media ) -
SixDegrees.com
SixDegrees.com was the first recognizable social media website. Users were able to send messages, upload profile pictures and connect with others. In 2000 it was purchased for $125 million and later shut down in 2001.
( https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/then-and-now-a-history-of-social-networking-sites/2/ ) -
MySpace
On myspace you completely customize your profile but also you could embed music and videos. This social media website became popular very quickly.
( https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/29/myspace-history-timeline_n_887059.html ) -
Facebook
Facebook first started out at Harvard University but then in 2006 the network was extended beyond educational institutions to anyone with a registered email address. Facebook became one of the most popular social media websites. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/25/media.newmedia) -
YouTube
YouTube opened a whole new method of communication. Today more videos are uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all U.S. television networks have created in 60 years.
( http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1990787,00.html ) -
Twitter
Twitter was different compared to the other social media websites because having users interact directly with celebrities was almost unheard of previously. It can be argued that it could play a vital role in the future of politics as well.
( https://interestingengineering.com/chronological-history-of-social-media ) -
Tumblr
Tumblr has grown in popularity with its microblogging and social networking features. To date, it has over 350 million blogs alone which is very impressive.
( http://www.businessinsider.com/the-history-of-tumblr-2013-5 ) -
Instagram
"Instagram had 1 million users just 2 months after its launch and it kept on growing ever since. Instagram knew how to continually improve itself adding new features and new photo effects. After becoming available on Android phones and very recently adding direct messaging, Instagram may have made a place for itself that will last for many years to come."
( https://wersm.com/the-complete-history-of-instagram/ ) -
Google+
Users were able to form group contacts into "circles" and chat via video "hangouts". With the great "speciation" of social media since the 2000's a method of unifying them together was fast becoming a necessity.
( https://interestingengineering.com/chronological-history-of-social-media )
