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?
