Social Media
Platforms built on other people. Facebook and Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, TikTok, the feed and the algorithm, moderation and the scandals, and the hearings that followed.
Part of Technology
19 moments in this segment.
- - Facebook Founded. February 4, 2004. Mark Zuckerberg launches "thefacebook.com" from his Harvard dorm room. By 2012: 1 billion users. By 2024 (as Meta): 3.9 billion across its family of apps. The most consequential social network ever built.
- - Zuckerberg on Facebook in 2004. 2004 Harvard-newspaper interviews with 20-year-old Mark Zuckerberg about thefacebook.com. The unguarded early footage from before he became one of the most-watched CEOs alive.
- - YouTube Founded. February 14, 2005. Three former PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, launch YouTube. First video: "Me at the zoo" (April 23, 2005). Acquired by Google for $1.65B (Oct 2006), 18 months after launch.
- - Me at the Zoo (First YouTube Video). April 23, 2005. Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. 19 seconds, 350M+ views. The video that proved YouTube's concept and started the platform's 20-year run.
- - Reddit Co-Founders Pitch. 2005 Y Combinator interviews of 22-year-olds Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian pitching Reddit. The founding archive of YC's defining era.
- - Reddit Founded. June 23, 2005. Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian launch Reddit. By 2024: "the front page of the internet," 73M daily active users. IPO'd March 2024.
- - Twitter Launches. March 21, 2006. Jack Dorsey sends the first tweet: "just setting up my twttr." Becomes the de-facto public-square of the early 2010s; rebranded "X" 2023 after Elon Musk's $44B acquisition.
- - First Tweet. March 21, 2006. Jack Dorsey: "just setting up my twttr." The first tweet ever. Sold as an NFT in 2021 for $2.9M; bidder later tried to resell for $48M and got bids of $277.
- - Spotify Launches in Sweden. October 7, 2008. Daniel Ek launches Spotify in Stockholm. The first legal, ad-supported, on-demand streaming service that actually worked. By 2024: 615M users, 256M paying.
- - WhatsApp Founded. February 24, 2009. Jan Koum and Brian Acton found WhatsApp. By 2014, 600M users; Facebook acquires for $19B, the largest tech acquisition of the decade. By 2024: 2 billion monthly active users.
- - Instagram Launch Demo. October 6, 2010. Kevin Systrom's Instagram launch, square photos, filters, one-tap sharing. 1M users in 2 months; sold to Facebook 18 months later for $1B.
- - Tinder Launches. September 2012. Tinder launches at USC. By 2023: 50M+ users in 190 countries. Reshaped human dating; the swipe gesture became a universal UI verb.
- - Discord Launches. May 13, 2015. Jason Citron launches Discord, initially for gamers; becomes the default community platform of the late 2010s. 200M monthly active by 2024.
- - TikTok Goes Global. August 2018. ByteDance merges Musical.ly into TikTok internationally. By 2021, the most-downloaded app in the world. The first non-American social platform to achieve global Western mainstream scale.
- - TikTok Launches Globally. August 2018. ByteDance merges Musical.ly into TikTok. Within 3 years: most-downloaded app in the world.
- - Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower. March 17, 2018. Christopher Wylie's Cambridge Analytica disclosure on Channel 4 News. The interview that turned data-privacy into a global political issue and accelerated GDPR enforcement.
- - Zuckerberg Senate Testimony. April 10-11, 2018. Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress over Cambridge Analytica. "Senator, we run ads" became one of the defining viral exchanges of 2010s tech politics.
- - Facebook Rebrands as Meta. October 28, 2021. Mark Zuckerberg rebrands Facebook's parent company to Meta, signalling a "metaverse" pivot. Reality Labs has lost $50B+ on metaverse R&D through 2024, but Meta's 2024 AI pivot recovers most market-cap losses.
- - Musk Walks Into Twitter HQ With a Sink. October 26, 2022. Elon Musk walks into Twitter HQ carrying a kitchen sink: "Let that sink in!" Days before he closes the $44B acquisition. The first of many viral moments from his Twitter ownership.
