Timeline: Social Networking Sites

Posted by Martin McKenzie Edward on February 15, 2010 · 1 Comment 

Social networking sites which allow users to connect with each other online have grown into one of themost popular features on the World Wide Web. Here is a brief history some of the most popular sites which have risen to world wide popularity.

1985 –  The origins of  social network sites began with the emergence of online communities such as The Well

1994 – Geocites ( now closed) aimed to bring people together in the format of chatrooms where people could share ideas and thoughts.

2003– Friendster is launched attracting over 3 million users within the first few months. The aim was to provide a safe environment for people to connect online

2003– With the launch of Friendster the popularity and appeal of  social networking sites was being recognised. Myspace built upon the key features of Friendster but gave users the ability to add music and video to their pages. Myspace  was bought in July 2005 by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

2004 – Mark Zuckerberg creates Facebook from his college dorm as a networking site for students at Harvard University. Facebook remains one of the most popular social networking sites with over 400 million users worldwide.

2005 – Bebo launched as a networking and blogging site. Key features were a friends list and comment box. Bebo becomes part of AOL in 2008. Can be linked to other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

2005 – YouTube an Adobe Flash video sharing website, displaying a broad range of user-generated content including film and TV clips, music videos and original, amateur blogs or videos

2006 – Twitter was launched as a new type of social networking site, focused on microblogging. It allows people to send ‘tweets’ and to update their status to notify people on what they are up to. Instead of having ‘friends’ users have people ‘following’ them or they follow people, allowing them users to keep up to date with what their friends are doing. Twitter became an ideal platform for celebrities to connect with their fans.

2010 – Building on the idea of Twitter, Google Buzz targets a more niche market of Gmail users, allowing them to automatically and conveniently follow existing friends. Like Twitter, intertextuality is integrated in the form of photos (Flickr), videos (YouTube) and links (Twitter).

Filed under Miscellaneous · Tagged with Facebook, Friendster, google buzz, History, Myspace, networking, social, timeline, twitter, YouTube, Zuckerberg