Most Popular Social Media Platforms 1997 – 2023

This is an update to the original video published in 2020. I’ve included more data for Chinese social media platforms and included some that I left out such as YouTube and Telegram, since they’re no longer just basic apps for video and messaging. In this data visualization video I look at the most popular social media networks based on active accounts during that time.

These stats come from Wikipedia, Statista, archive.org and from Google Books searches. I did not include those platforms that did not report stats. Some of the data includes approximate numbers as the data available skipped years.

In the video I included screenshots of certain platforms from the list as they looked during that particular year. The platform thumbnails:

1997 – Bolt
Founded as a community for teens

1998 – Classmates
Biggest collection of yearbooks online

1999 – Open Diary
Introduced commenting and privacy settings

2000 – theGlobe
Chatrooms and online clubs

2001 – PlanetAll
Bought and killed by Amazon

2002 – LiveJournal
Still Popular in Russia for Microblogging

2003 – MySpace
First global social network

2004 – Orkut
From Google, became popular in Brazil

2005 – Friendster
Created before MySpace, Hi5 and Facebook

2006 – QQ
Messaging and web portal from China

2007 – Hi5
Social media with focus on dating

2008 – VKontakte
Russian clone of Facebook

2009 – Facebook
Infamous update of news feed

2010 – Tagged
Originally a social network for teens

2011 – Tumblr
Microblogging and social network

2012 – QZone
Social network from China

2013 – OK.ru
Russian social network

2014 – Reddit
Content discovery and discussion

2015 – Vine
Short looping video clips

2016 – Snapchat
Video messaging with goofy filters

2017 – WeChat
Reaches 1 million mini apps

2018 – Whatsapp
Implemented stories

2019 – Facebook
Testing redesign

2020 – TikTok
Dance challenges

2021 – Messenger
Meta’s original messaging app

2022 – YouTube
Added shorts and stories

Thank you for watching. Let me know which platforms have been your favorite?

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7 Social Media Posts with Disturbing Backstories

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Sometimes social media sites can be anything but friendly, and these 7 posts go to prove it…

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Most Popular Social Media Platforms 1997 – 2020

In this data visualization video I look at the most popular social media networks based on active accounts during that time. I also did not include streaming video platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, I will post those in a different video.

These stats come from Wikipedia, archive.org and from Google Books searches. I did not include those platforms that did not report stats.I also reduced the numbers to take into account fake and duplicate accounts. Some of the data includes approximate numbers as the data available skipped years.

In the video I included screenshots of certain platforms from the list as they looked during that particular year. The platform thumbnails:

1997 – Bolt
Founded as a community for teens

1998 – Classmates
Biggest collection of yearbooks online

1999 – Open Diary
Introduced commenting and privacy settings

2000 – theGlobe

2001 – PlanetAll
Bought and killed by Amazon

2002 – LiveJournal
Still Popular in Russia for Microblogging

2003 – MySpace

2004 – Orkut
From Google, became popular in Brazil

2007 – Hi5
As popular as MySpace

2008 – VKontakte
Russian clone of Facebook

2009 – Facebook
Infamous update of news feed

2010 – Tagged
Originally a social network for teens

2011 – Tumblr

2012 – QZone
Social network from China

2013 – OK.ru
Russian social network

2014 – Reddit

2015 – Vine
Short looping video clips

2016 – Snapchat

2017 – WeChat
Reaches 1 million mini apps

2018 – TikTok

2019 – Facebook
Testing redesign

Thank you for watching. Let me know which platforms have been your favorite?

Most Popular Social Networks 2003 – 2019

Timeline evolution of top social networks from 2003 to 2019. Measured by monthly active users worldwide. Video hosting services like YouTube or Vimeo, as well content/community sites like Reddit are not included.

*****

I am a first year PhD student, data geek and I love visualizations.
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Data source: press releases, 10-k sec filings, industry reports

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