Social media like traditional media was and is currently used to communicate information, deliver a message, share content. Although the definition of ‘social media has evolved over the years, but in history its foundational uses have remained.
Social media was created to share content, connect the world, and communicate with people. Although social media as a ‘term’ has evolved into different platforms and devices, its foundational features remain. Inventions of the telegraph, the radio, and television channels boosted the growth of the modern advanced social media apps we use today. The history of networking is more colorful than you ever think.
The rise of the internet and home-available computers gave a new perspective and meaning to the already available social media apps. We can only speculate that social media in the future will have more power and control in our lives.
Pre Facebook era
This gave rise to the earliest social media networks, beginning with the short-lived Six Degrees profile uploading service in 1997.
This service was followed in 2001 by Friendster. These rudimentary platforms attracted millions of users and enabled email address registration and basic online networking.
Weblogs, or blogs, another early form of digital social communication, began to gain popularity with the 1999 launch of the LiveJournal publishing site. This coincided with the launch of the Blogger publishing platform by the tech company Pyra Labs. Which was purchased by Google in 2003.
In 2002, LinkedIn was founded as a networking site for career-minded professionals. By 2020, it had grown to more than 675 million users worldwide. It remains the social media site of choice for job seekers. As well as human resources managers searching for qualified candidates.
Two other major forays into social media collapsed after a burst of initial success in history. In 2003, Myspace launched. By 2006, it was the most visited website on the planet. Spurred by users’ ability to share new music directly on their profile pages.
History of Facebook
Launched in 2004, Facebook began as a social media site for college students. Created by Mark Zuckerberg while he studied at Harvard. Facebook soon began to gain popularity throughout the collegiate community and beyond to overtake other top social networks. By the end of 2004, it already boasted more than 1 million users.
Today, more than 3 billion people around the world use Facebook to form business and personal connections with like-minded individuals. Due to the platform’s massive success, its parent company, now named Meta, has made significant acquisitions and remains a force in the realms of communications, media and pop culture.
Flickr
In 2004, Flickr became the first social network for photo sharing. As of 2019, the network had over 100 million accounts and still considers itself the “…best online photo management and sharing application in the world.”
Reddit
In 2005, Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman launched Reddit. As a place where users could share content, discuss topics of interest, and vote up the most popular stories.
Reddit has since developed a base of over 430 million users, 100 thousand communities, and 13 billion posts and comments.
Twitter
Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and others as a microblogging site. By 2020, 22% of U.S. adults were Twitter users, according to Pew Research.
Instagram
Founded in 2010 by Stanford graduate Kevin Systrom as a photo-sharing site and purchased by Facebook in 2012. Instagram has more than 1 billion users worldwide.
History of Pinterest
Founded in 2010 by iPhone app developer Ben Silbermann as a visual “pin board,”. Pinterest became a publicly traded company in 2019 and has more than 335 million active monthly users.
Snapchat
Founded in 2011 by a trio of Stanford students — Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy. This video-sharing service introduced the concept of “stories,” or serialized short videos, and “filters,” run for informative digital effects, often based on location.
TikTok
Founded in 2016 by Chinese tech company ByteDance. This short-form video-sharing site was merged with the U.S.-based mobile app Musical.ly in 2018 and became popular with American teens and young adults. As of early 2020, it had more than 800 million users worldwide.
Clubhouse, a social audio platform, became extremely popular during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. However, it struggled to remain relevant as pandemic restrictions eased.
BeReal, a photo-sharing app that prompts users to post one unfiltered photo per day, made a big splash in 2022. Though it was at one point the most popular social networking app in the App Store. It still remains to be seen if BeReal is the next TikTok.
Where will social media take us into the future? Will we see increased social media marketing, virtual reality and increasing breaches on our privacy? Will micro-blogging dominate, or will future social media users demonstrate a preference for longer-form content? How will video influence future social channels, and what role will social media play in future world events? Only time will tell.