May 1, 2001:Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia launches.  Originally just 6 articles, when the site is opened to allow others to edit it, the site quickly becomes a crowdsourced reference cited in major media.

November, 2001:StumbleUpon, a website that recommends web content to its users, begins, popularizing the social bookmarking phenomenon.

March 22, 2002:Friendster, considered the granddaddy of social networks, launches.

November, 2002:Technorati, a search engine for blogs, goes live helping bloggers get exposure and traffic.

May, 2003:LinkedIn begins. LinkedIn strives to be known as a business-related social networking site used by professionals from its inception.

May 23, 2003:WordPress, a publishing platform using php that hosts blogs, is released.

January, 2004:Myspace is launched.

January 4, 2004:Google begins Gmail.  It becomes a valuable tool for Google’s data mining efforts, as well as an additional Adwords revenue generator.

February, 2004:Flickr, an image and video hosting website, goes live allowing people to share media files with great ease.

March 1, 2004:Facebook, a social networking service which began at Harvard, is adopted and championed by  the college student crowd.

October, 2004:Yelp begins, allowing users to use the social networking site to  review local businessesses.

December 5, 2004:DIGG goes live, and quickly becomes a social bookmarking favorite.

December 30, 2004: Facebook reaches one million members.

February, 2005: Youtube, a strictly video-sharing website, goes live and quickly becomes adopted as THE video sharing site.

July, 2005:Mashable, goes live focusing specifically on Social Media’s rise and it’s major players.

October 1, 2005:Facebook becomes available in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

June, 2006:Myspace becomes the most popular social networking site in the United States.

July 15, 2006:Twitter launches as maybe the first “mini-blogging” site, as it only allows 140 characters in each post.

September 5, 2006:Facebook launches its news feed feature to a mixed reaction. Users are not used to their every move being tracked in one general stream.

September 10, 2006:Google acquires Youtube.

March 1, 2007:Facebook reaches one million active users in the UK.

May, 2007:StumbleUpon is acquired by eBay.

May 24, 2007:opens up it’s platform to developers, allowing them to integrate games and widgets.  Popular games such as Farmville, Bejeweled Blitz, and Mafia Wars appear soon after.

July 29, 2007:Apple releases the iPhone in the United States, making the Smart Phone as ubiquitous as the Television. It’s master stroke is allowing users to access social media sites and apps through their phone.

April, 2008:Facebook becomes the most popular social networking site, surpassing Myspace which had been in first place since June 2006.

July, 2008:Facebook Connect is introduced. Facebook Connect enables developers to create a way for users to using their Facebook accounts to interact with third-party websites, applications, gaming systems, and mobile devices.

July 4, 2008:TweetDeck launches as a desktop application for power users of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, and other social networking sites.

October 7, 2008:iTunes opens up it’s App store, becoming a search engine for iPhone apps.

January, 2009:Twitter surges to become the third-highest-ranking social networking site.

March 11, 2009:Foursquare launches, taking advantage of built in GPS functionality in Smart Phones, to be a location-based social networking website.

June 25, 2009: Michael Jackson dies, Twitter servers crash as tweets are sent at an astounding 100,000 tweets per hour.

September, 2009:WordPress reaches 202 million users.

October, 2009:Flicker hosts more than 4 billion images.

February, 2010:Twitter users at this point are sending 50 million tweets per day.

April, 2010:Facebook at this point in time is delivering more than half of all U.S. social medial referral traffic

May 10, 2010:Google Wave, a web-based platform designed to merge email and social networking, is released to the general public. By the end of 2010, Google would hand it over to the Apache Software Foundation.

June, 2010:Twitter users reach the 65 million tweets per day mark.  That’s about 750 tweets per second.

July 21, 2010:Facebook eclipses the 500 million active users, only 18 months after it hit the 200 million active user mark.

October 1, 2010:Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network opens in movie theaters in the United States.  The film about Facebook and its creator, Mark Zuckerburg, will go on to win 3 oscars.

October 26, 2010:YouTube’s growth is illustrated as Lady Gaga becomes the first person to receive one billion overall views on YouTube.

February, 2011:Social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook become tools for social and political upheaval, as activists organize an uprising in Egypt, and throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

August 19, 2011:StumbleUpon surpasses Facebook in delivering more than half of all U.S. social media traffic.

October, 2011:NextDoor.com starts beta testing.  Slate: Nextdoor, the social network that promises to introduce you to the people on your block. [1.   Seth Stevenson]

November 29th, 2012: HistoWiki.com starts beta testing.

About This Timeline’s Curator: This timeline’s content was graciously provided by Rainmaker Reputation AI is an innovative marketing technology company that helps local business brands, business coaches and consultants deploy AI technology to market to their customers more effectively.  Rainmaker Reputation AI’s latest features include Voice AI which allows inbound callers to be booked for appointments, have their questions about the brand answered, and/or directed to the appropriate business’ contact.

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