Social media is part of our lives and it is now in nearly everyone’s pocket, which opens up a great deal for us. As an advertising agency, the social networks where we can reach audiences easily hold an important place in bringing us new sales. We wanted to build a chronological timeline of how social networks got to where they are, and share it here so you can take something from it.

We looked at the differences between SEO and SMO recently as well.

A Chronology of Social Media

  • 1978 – the Bulletin Board System (BBS) appears
  • 1979 – Usenet newsgroups are created
  • 1988 – Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is developed
  • 1994 – Geocities is founded
  • 1995 – Classmates.com is founded
  • 1996 – the ICQ instant messaging service launches
  • 1997 – AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is released
  • 1997 – Six Degrees, the first modern social network site, is founded
  • 1998 – Open Diary, the first blog community platform, is founded
  • 1999 – LiveJournal is founded
  • 1999 – the Blogger platform launches
  • 2000 – LunarStorm, a social network popular in Sweden, is founded
  • 2001 – Wikipedia is founded
  • 2001 – Kardelen FM is founded
  • 2002 – Friendster is founded
  • 2003 – LinkedIn is founded
  • 2003 – MySpace is founded
  • 2003 – Skype is founded
  • 2003 – WordPress is released
  • 2003 – Del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site, is founded
  • 2004 – Facebook (first called “TheFacebook”) is founded at Harvard
  • 2004 – Flickr is founded
  • 2004 – the Digg social news site is founded
  • 2004 – Orkut is founded, by Google
  • 2005 – YouTube is founded
  • 2005 – Reddit is founded
  • 2005 – Bebo is founded
  • 2006 – Twitter is founded
  • 2006 – Facebook opens to everyone
  • 2006 – QQ, the instant messaging platform popular in China, expands
  • 2007 – Tumblr is founded
  • 2007 – FriendFeed is founded (bought by Facebook in 2009)
  • 2007 – Sina Weibo is founded as a microblogging platform in China
  • 2008 – Facebook Chat is added
  • 2009 – WhatsApp is founded
  • 2009 – Foursquare is founded
  • 2009 – Sina Weibo opens to the public
  • 2010 – Instagram is founded
  • 2010 – Pinterest is founded
  • 2011 – Snapchat is founded
  • 2011 – Google+ is founded (closed in 2019)
  • 2011 – WeChat is founded in China as a multipurpose messaging app
  • 2012 – Facebook buys Instagram
  • 2012 – Tinder is founded
  • 2013 – Vine is founded (closed in 2016)
  • 2013 – Telegram is founded
  • 2014 – Facebook buys WhatsApp
  • 2014 – Ello is founded as an ad free social network
  • 2015 – Periscope is founded (closed in 2021)
  • 2015 – Discord is founded
  • 2015 – Facebook Live is added
  • 2016 – TikTok (first called “Douyin”) is founded in China
  • 2016 – Instagram Stories is added
  • 2017 – TikTok opens to the international market
  • 2017 – LinkedIn is bought by Microsoft
  • 2018 – IGTV (Instagram TV) launches
  • 2018 – Facebook Dating is added
  • 2019 – Facebook announces the Libra (now Diem) cryptocurrency project
  • 2019 – TikTok reaches 1 billion downloads in the United States
  • 2020 – Clubhouse is founded
  • 2020 – Instagram Reels is added
  • 2020 – Facebook Shops is added
  • 2021 – Twitter Spaces is added
  • 2021 – Facebook changes the company name to “Meta”
  • 2021 – LinkedIn removes Stories
  • 2022 – Elon Musk buys Twitter
  • 2022 – the BeReal app gains popularity
  • 2022 – Meta brings NFT support to Instagram
  • 2022 – the Twitter Blue subscription launches
  • 2023 – Meta releases Threads as a rival to Twitter
  • 2023 – Twitter changes its name to “X”
  • 2023 – Meta expands the Horizon Worlds VR social platform
  • 2023 – TikTok launches TikTok Shop e-commerce in the United States
  • 2023 – LinkedIn introduces AI powered content creation tools
  • 2024 – Instagram expands content creation for Close Friends
  • 2024 – Twitter (X) improves its video broadcasting features
  • 2024 – Facebook introduces its next generation virtual reality social experiences
  • 2024 – TikTok improves its education focused content creation tools
  • 2024 – Snapchat expands its augmented reality features
  • 2024 – Pinterest strengthens its AI powered personalized discovery
  • 2024 – YouTube improves interactive live streaming

In Short

The internet will go on opening up new opportunities. Out of the project management I have been doing since 1999, one conviction has come out firm: “work patiently on the project you believe in”. Social media or anywhere else, there are opportunities in every one of them, and you have to know how to be in the right place at the right time.