6 Momentous Events In Social Media History

The phrase "social media history" seems like a bit of a contradiction.  However, you might be surprised to know that social media has been around for 15 years.  Although Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter are the main players in the social media realm, other companies developed the critical concepts while Mark Zuckerberg was still in grade school.

1994: TheGlobe.com is founded.
Cornell students Stephan Paternot and Todd Krizelman founded TheGlobe.com.  The basic concept was a web site where every user profile could be personalized along with chat rooms and messaging options.  When TheGlobe sold stock to the public in November 1998, it posted the largest first-day gain of any IPO in history to that date--606% over the initial share price.  Unfortunately, the website failed to generate significant advertising revenue, and finally died in 2008.

1994: GeoCities invents user-created content
The now defunct website-host GeoCities provided customizable “home pages” for anyone.  This marked the first time everyday users could generate and post content on the internet.  GeoCities was acquired by Yahoo! and then closed in 2009.  Its main competitor Angelfire was founded in 1996, and still exists.

1999: LiveJournal Hits The Market
Online diary keeping officially started with the introduction of LiveJournal, the first blogging site.  Its main competitor Blogger is the host site for Joe’s Musings.  LiveJournal failed to keep pace with Blogger, and in 2009, most of its U.S. staff were laid off and remaining operations were moved to Russia.

2002: Friendster Invents Friending
Did you think Facebook was the only website where you can add friends?  Think again.  In 2002, Friendster allowed users to collect “friends”.  Facebook utilized this model and quickly eclipsed Friendster in 2004.  Friendster officially closed and deleted its users’ accounts in May 2011, vowing to reopen as a Asia-focused gaming site.

2004: Facebook Dominates
Founded in a Harvard dormroom, Facebook has quickly become the largest social media site on the internet with over 750 million users.  Facebook is simple to use and many companies now have a page or an app.  The company is expected to go public in 2012.

2006: Twitter Reinvents the Blog
Twitter is a simplified form of blogging that limits its users to 140 characters per “tweet”.  The website now offers retweets, mentions, and a following service.  The model Twitter uses is ingenious because it allows people to keep a blog without writing at length.