In droves, frustrated Friendsters said “sorry it’s not me, it’s you” and pulled up stakes for Myspace, the Friendster rival that quickly became the go-to site for millions of hip teens. Unfortunately, the site’s spike in popularity in 2003 caught the company by surprise and took a toll on its servers, impacting users, who increasingly looked to connect elsewhere. Messaging “friends of friends of friends” was also a thing. You could create a profile, include “status updates” and reveal your mood. Launched in 2002, Friendster was originally going to be a dating site that would help set up people with friends in common. Then along came everyone’s BFF: Friendster. The site is rumored to have influenced the creators of Facebook and YouTube-and nurtured millions of insecurities.Īfter being sold off a few times, its new owners tried to revive it as a “game” in 2014. Who can forget Hot or Not ( )-the site that invited users to submit photos of themselves so others could rate their attractiveness. The site amassed around one million users before it was bought out for $125 million …and shuttered in 2000, though it later made a modest comeback and still subsists today.
On one of the first true social media sites,, you could set up a profile page, create lists of connections, and send messages within networks. The first social media site is born (1997) The 29 most important moments in the history of social media 1.
