Social Media: Virtual Platforms where users can share and create information, opinion, feelings, reaction etc. it also allows users to interact with others.
Following is the history of Social Networking Sites:
Six Degrees: It was the first social media website launched in the year 1997. Six Degrees allowed users to create profile and to become friends with other users. It derived its name from ‘Six degrees of separation theory’ and lasted from 1997 to 2001. The Company that developed the site was founded by CEO Andrew Weinreich and was based in New York City.
By the year 2000, internet was everywhere, around 100 million people had access to the internet and more and more people started engaging themselves socially online.
My Space: In the early 2000, the website MySpace turned out to be popular social site to set up profile and make friends. Even social networking sites like Facebook got inspired from MySpace. Although MySpace has very small users base today as compared to Facebook and Twitter, but some musician have used this platform to reach audience and promote their music.
LinKedln: It is also one of the beginning website, began in co-founder Reid Hoffman’s living room in 2002, but later officially launched on May 5, 2003. The site is still popular and it connects professionals who want to network with each other.
Also Read: ‘IF YOU DISTURB THE NATURE, NATURE WILL DISTURB YOU’
Orkut: Orkut was launched on January 22, 2004 by Google. The site was originally developed by Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer, as an independent project while working at Google. Orkut was a social networking tool designed to help you maintain your friendships and meet new friends. Orkut’s profile was divided into three categories: social, professional, and personal. However, Google decided to shut down the Orkut on September 30, 2014.
Facebook: Facebook was launched in the year 2004 by its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. It became the social media giant and overcome all social media sites. Currently, it is number one social networking site boasts over a billion users.
Initially the Facebook was launched for just Harvard Students with URL address thefacebook.com. When Zuckerberg recognized the potential, he extended the service to the world at the website facebook.com
Twitter: In the year 2006, when the text messaging and SMS gained popularity, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Noah Glass and Evan Williams created other popular social networking sites called Twitter. It is a unique service that allows users to send tweets. Initially the limit of characters for per tweet was 140, but in 2017 the company doubled its characters count and tweets now fit 280 characters.
YouTube: On February 14, 2005 YouTube came into existence. It was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim and the first video uploaded on YouTube was titled Me at the Zoo. The video shows one of the co-founder Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005. Youtube allows users to open their own account and upload videos. Users can also watch videos on Youtube. The site has I.5 billion users each month. However, on 13 November 2006 Google bought Youtube for $ 1.65 billion.
WhatsApp: When Brian Acton and Jan Koum co-founders of Whatsapp applied for Jobs at Facebook, their applications were rejected. In the year 2009, Brain and Jan launched their own social networking site WhatsApp. The duos were working with Yahoo till September 2007. In February 2014, When Facebook announced its plans to acquire WhatsApp in February 2014, WhatsApp’s founders attached a purchase price of $16 billion: $4 billion in cash and $12 billion remaining in Facebook shares.
Instagram: Instahram was founded by Kevin Systom and San Francisco, California in the year 2010. Initially it was only Photo sharing social networking service. Later it became video-sharing network as well. The name “Instagram” comes from the words “instant camera” and “telegram”.
