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The First Social Media Site
Six Degrees is a website that was invented in 1997 and is accredited as the first social media site. Six Degrees gave users the ability to upload a profile and befriend other users (Hale, 2015). -
Napster
Napster was first invented to give people a network to share music in MP3 format, and it was extremely popular as it gave people access to countless free music files. However, it was shutdown in 2001, after a lawsuit from The Recording Industry Association of America due to numerous unauthorized copyrighted files being sent across its network (Harris, 2018). -
The First Blogging Site
The first blogging site became popular in 1999. Once blogging gained popularity, the use of other social media sites skyrocketed because blogging got people hooked on the joy of connecting and communicating instantly with other users (Hale, 2015). -
Myspace
MySpace became the first mainstream site that allowed users to create a personal profile, connect with old friends, and make new friends. Myspace sparked the first big social media surge, and it lead to the development of other sites such as Facebook (Hale, 2015). -
Linkedin
In 2003, Linkedin was the first site to fill a specific niche in social media that was geared towards the business world. It created a place for social networking between business people, and it developed a more professional space by changing the verbiage used from "friends" which other social media sites used to "connections" which is more business savvy. With 297 million members, it is still a popular place for business networking to occur today (Shah, 2018). -
Facebook
In 2004, Facebook was invented by Mark Zuckerberg, and it set the standard high for all other social media sites to follow. Facebooks success can be partially credited to the "like" button which captivated users, and it can now be found on websites all over the internet. Facebook, with over a billion users, is still the number one social media site in the world today (Hale, 2015). -
Twitter
Twitter, launched in 2006, was inspired by text messaging, and it brought a new and unique concept to social media. It allowed its users to send out a "tweet" which is a message containing 140 characters or less. Twitter is still an extremely popular site today with over 500 million users (Hale, 2015). -
Social Media in Business
During the late 2000's, businesses began a widespread use of social media. Businesses started to list their social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, on their websites, commercials, and other advertisements. Social media became a important tool for building and maintaining businesses, and digital word of mouth became crucial (Hale, 2015). -
Mobile Technology and Social Media
2010 marked the rise of the mobility of technology, and thus the desire for mobile social networking. Instead of people only using the internet from desktop computers, people began to use mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets that they could use on the go. This launched the creation of applications with smartphone compatibility that allowed people to use all of their favorite social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and more wherever they went (Shah, 2018). -
Photo Sharing Sites
In 2010, many other social media sites came along, and sites such as Flickr and Instagram were created specifically for photo sharing. Both sites are still very popular today with Instagram charting as one of the top most popular sites to include on business cards (Hale, 2015). -
Snapchat
Rather than people only reaching social media via a desk top computer, people became much more prone to use mobile devices to access social media. Snapchat, created in 2011, allowed people to share photos and videos on their smartphone or other mobile device which fulfilled a unique desire and niche for social media users. It combined the idea of instant messaging and photo sharing and still captivates users today (Shah, 2018). -
Multiplatform Digital Identity
The majority of people use multiple social media platforms. Instead of platforms attempting to offer users a comprehensive service like sites such as Myspace did in the past, they now provide a niche specialty such as "the sharing of public images (Instagram), the private sharing of images sharing (Snapchat), augmented reality (Foursquare), and location-based matchmaking (Tinder)" (Shah, 2018, p. 1). People use many different social media services in order to create their digital identity.
