-
SixDegrees Launches
The first well-known social network that let people make profiles and connect with each other. -
Friendster Debuts
An early social media site that became very famous very quickly before going down because it couldn't handle growth. -
LinkedIn Launches
A site for professionals to connect and talk about jobs and careers. -
Facebook Launches
Facebook is started by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard. -
Youtube
YouTube changes the way people share videos online. -
Twitter
Tweets with 140 characters are used for messaging. -
Facebook Opens to Public
Facebook was first made for college students, but now anyone 13 or older with an email address can join. This is the start of Facebook's world growth. -
Hashtag First Used
Chris Messina suggests using # to group tweets together. -
Twitter Adopts Hashtags
Hashtags are now officially used on Twitter. -
Instagram Launches
A social app for sharing photos that has filters. -
Snapchat
Introduces messages that disappear. -
Google+ Launches
To fight with Facebook, Google makes its own social network called Google+. It didn't catch on, and it shut down in 2019. -
Facebook Buys Instagram
$1B acquisition -
Vine
People really like Twitter's 6-second video app Vine, and it helps a lot of famous people get their start. It was shut down in 2017. -
FaceBook Buys WhatsApp
Huge growth in world messages. -
TikTok
ByteDance released it in China first, and then it came out everywhere else. -
Zoom and TikTok
Boosts worries about privacy in how Facebook uses data. -
Cambridge Analytics scandal
Boosts worries about privacy in how Facebook uses data. -
ClubHouse Gains Popularity
During the pandemic, the audio-only social platform Clubhouse grows in popularity, letting users have drop-in talk chats with entrepreneurs and celebs. -
Threads By Meta
Meta starts a website that works like Twitter.