Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 2010–2019 Timeline (Part 8)

Social Media Surge and Mobile Internet

The 2010s saw the explosive growth of social media and the widespread adoption of mobile internet. These two elements reshaped how we connect, share, and do business. The introduction of Instagram and Snapchat changed how we communicate globally. The founding of Quora increased the ease with which we can share information and learn. Internet-based freelance services like Fiverr made finding help online that much easier.

4G mobile internet was introduced making the internet more accessible than ever. This decade was not without its own difficulties, though. The continued growth of the internet and the bulk of new data requiring storage brought to light concerns of ethical data privacy. Meanwhile, blockchain technology and Netflix’s streaming service disrupted traditional sectors making this decade one of continued innovation.

2010

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched Instagram. Instagram quickly grew in popularity and became one of the largest social networks.

Source: PopularMechanics.com

The Quora Inc. Company was created in June. A year later, the company launched its quick questions and answer website that gained a large following.

Source: Wikipedia

Viber was launched. It was first used exclusively for iPhone smartphones, as a response to Skype.

Source: Wikipedia

Shai Wininger and Micha Kaufman co-founded Fiverr.

Source: Wikipedia

Research showed that China was dominating the internet with over 450 million internet users.

Source: The Two-Way

People Kevin Systrom – born in Holliston, Massachusetts in 1983. An internet entrepreneur and programmer who is best known for creating Instagram together with Mike Krieger. He’s also the former CEO of Instagram and a former board member of Walmart. He worked for Google and Burbn before founding Instagram. Source: Wikipedia Mike Krieger – born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1986. A software engineer that co-founded Instagram and was the CTO of the company. He is the partner of GiveWell, a non-profit charity. Source: Wikipedia   Technologies & companies Instagram – also known as Insta or IG. This social network was launched in 2010 by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom. It’s a video and photo-based platform designed for mobile users. Even though Instagram has had a desktop interface since 2012, it doesn’t offer all the functionalities of the app. Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 for a total of $1 billion. Source: Wikipedia Pinterest – a social network where users share images. It’s made to present ideas visually and help people discover and share new images. This social network is dominated by female users and in August of 2020 it had over 400 million active users per month. Source: Wikipedia Quora – one of the most popular forum-like sites and platforms where users can ask questions and get quick answers by other users. The site has over 300 million monthly users and people can log in to edit answers, give answers, and submit questions. Source: Wikipedia Fiverr – an online platform where freelancers can offer their services to people around the whole. This company was launched in Israel in 2010 but it quickly established a global presence. There are many different kinds of freelancers on Fiverr some of which do their work online, while others do it in the office. Source: Wikipedia Viber – “Rakuten Viber” is an instant messaging Voice over Internet Phone application owned by the Rakuten company from Japan. The company gives this app as freeware for Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. Users register on the app by giving their cellular number, but the app can even be used on desktops without a phone number. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 255,287,546 hosts 202,000,000 domain names 99,008,445 websites 1.971 million Internet users

2011

The Royal Wedding of Kate and Will was streamed online. This is the largest ever internet event recorded up until that moment, with the most live viewers watching the same stream simultaneously. 

UCLA opened up its Internet History Center, the place of the first ARPAnet node.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

One of the most popular photo & video sharing platforms called Snapchat was launched.

Source: Wikipedia

A live-streaming platform called Twitch was launched by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear. Twitch later became the most popular site of its kind, with millions of viewers.

Source: Wikipedia

The first-ever Darknet Market was launched, called the “Silk Road”.

Source: Wikipedia

People Kevin Systrom – born in Holliston, Massachusetts in 1983. An internet entrepreneur and programmer that is best known for creating Instagram together with Mike Krieger. He is also the former CEO of Instagram and a former board member of Walmart. He worked for Google and Burbn before founding Instagram. Source: Wikipedia Justin Kan – born in 1983. an investor and entrepreneur. He co-founded Justin.tv which later turned into Twitch. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Atrium. Kan was also a partner at Y Combinator at the Silicon Valley. He also created The Drop and made a lot of contributions to TechCrunch. Source: Wikipedia Emmett Shear – born in 1983. He co-founded Twitch and Justin.tv. He also co-founded Kiko Software and is one of the partners at Y Combinator. Shear is the CEO of Twitch and is a long-lasting business partner of Justin Kan. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Snapchat – created by Snap Inc. this messaging app lets users share messages, pictures, and videos that are available for a short time. At first it was created as a person-to-person platform, but it added the “Stories” and “Discover” features. Source: Wikipedia Twitch – a live-streaming platform created by “Twitch Interactive”. The majority of users stream live games, but it also includes esport competition streams, music broadcasts, different types of creative content, and IRL streams (in real life). Twitch was acquired by Amazon in 2014 only a few weeks after the company was renamed from “Justin.tv.” Source: Wikipedia Silk Road – an online black market that started in 2011. At first it was mainly used for buying or selling illegal drugs. It was a part of the dark web and people had to use the Tor browser to reach this marketplace. Due to these illegal activities the site was shut down by the FBI in 2013 and it went completely offline in 2017. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 555,482,744 hosts 225,000,000 domain names 175,249,222 websites 2.267 million Internet users

2012

The Internet Hall of Fame was founded by the Internet Society. The whole event took place in Geneva, Switzerland and during the founding, the first 33 members were added to the hall of fame.

Source: Wikipedia

The first globally-popular dating app, “Tinder”, was launched. Tinder would become one of the most popular apps in the world and inspire hundreds of other dating sites and apps to follow its steps.

Source: Wikipedia

People Kevin Systrom – born in Holliston, Massachusetts in 1983. An internet entrepreneur and programmer that is best known for creating Instagram together with Mike Krieger. He is also the former CEO of Instagram and a former board member of Walmart. He worked for Google and Burbn before founding Instagram. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Internet Hall of Fame – an organization that grants lifetime achievement awards to individuals that have made important contributions for the development of the internet. It was created in 2012 by the Internet Society and anyone can be nominated for being added to the hall of fame. Source: Wikipedia Tinder – an online dating app created by Tinder Inc. in 2012. The app lets people “swipe” profiles of other users anonymously. Simply put, they can like or dislike the profiles of other users and once they match, they can start communicating with each other. The people are suggested by the app through geo-tracking. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 633,706,564 hosts 252,000,000 domain names 185,922,303 websites 2.439 million Internet users

2013

A social media service for video sharing, Vine, was launched by Colin Kroll, Rus Yusupov, and Dom Hofmann. It was acquired by Twitter shortly before being launched. The service grew in popularity very quickly, but was eventually shut down.

Source: Wikipedia

Pavel and Nikolai Durov launched Telegram. This messenger app has users across Europe, Russia, and the United States with over 400 million users.

Source: Wikipedia

Edward Snowden copied and leaked sensitive files from the American NSA as an employee of the CIA. He revealed various surveillance scandals run by the NSA for tracking individuals, companies, and governments.

Source: Wikipedia

People Dom Hofmann – born in 1986 in New York, United States. A programmer and internet entrepreneur who created Byte, Peach, and co-created Vine. Source: Wikipedia Rus Yusupov – born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan in 1984. This entrepreneur and designer co-founded Vine and HQ Trivia. He was also the CEO of HQ Trivia, which was a live trivia game that broadcasted on mobile devices. He also founded Big Human and won various awards for his work. Source: Wikipedia Colin Kroll – born in New York, United States in 1984. Together with Rus Yusupov he co-founded HQ Trivia and Vine. Sadly, Kroll died very young at age 34 in 2018 due to a drug overdose. Source: Wikipedia Pavel Durov – born in Saint Petersburg in 1984. He is the founder of Telegram Messenger and VK. This internet entrepreneur is also a member of the Young Global Leaders Forum and World Economic Forum. He was the CEO of VK until 2014 after which he decided to travel the world in exile. Nikolai Durov is his older brother and together they founded VK. Source: Wikipedia Nikolai Durov – born in Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1980. A mathematician and programmer he co-created VK and Telegram with his brother Pavel. He also worked as a research mathematician and contributed with various geometry theories. Source: Wikipedia Edward Snowden – born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina in 1983. A former CIA employee and NSA contractor. Snowden’s name became known worldwide in 2013 when he leaked information about various global surveillance programs run by the NSA and its associate organizations. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Vine – a social networking platform that had a short video format sharing system. Users could upload up to 7-second-long looping videos. Videos from Vine could also be shared on Twitter and Facebook and for two years, it was a trending service. Vine was shut down in 2017 for uploading videos, but users could still view the archive. Source: Wikipedia Telegram – a cloud based internet messenger with chat, VoIP, and video telephony. It’s available to macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android users. It has over 400 million users in Asia, Europe, and the US. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 861,023,217 hosts 271,000,000 domain names 184,156,064 websites 2.802 million Internet users

2014

Facebook acquired the WhatsApp messaging service for around $19 billion. It was yet another event that solidified the Facebook Company as the leading internet giant.

45% of people aged 18 to 29 who were in a relationship said that the internet affected their relationships in a major way.

Source: Pew Research Center

Technologies & Companies WhatsApp – a messenger platform that combines several communication methods. It’s a VoIP service created by WhatsApp Inc. but it was acquired by Facebook. It can be used on both desktop computers and mobile devices. It requires a phone number to be added before you can start using the app. Source: Wikipedia Facebook – a social media giant from Menlo Park, California. Initially, Facebook was a network for Harvard students but it expanded to Yale, Stanford, and Columbia until it went public in 2006 and everyone could register. Facebook “inherited” MySpace as a leading global social network in 2009 and also acquired the second most popular social network “Instagram”. Source: Wikipedia

2015

Apple Released the “Apple Watch”, the first commercially available smartwatch. Even though it had a high price and short battery life, almost a million units were ordered the first day.

The Federal Communications Commission said that all Internet Service Providers needed to follow net neutrality as a principle to create a truly free and equal internet platform for everyone.

Source: Computer History Museum

Technologies & Companies Apple Watch – Apple’s first smartwatch was released in 2015. Over the second quarter of 2015 the company sold more than 4.2 million Applet Watches. They work on iOS and can be connected to other Apple services or products. Since then Apple released new versions each year with added features. Source: Wikipedia Net Neutrality – also known as Network Neutrality. An internet principle that states all Internet Service Providers should treat all internet users and communications equally. Net neutrality obligates Internet Service Providers to treat all traffic equally and provide the same service to all users, regardless of who they are. Source: Wikipedia

2016

Yahoo announced that the company suffered a major data breach that affected over 3 billion user accounts. The company revealed that the breach happened in 2014 and this is considered the largest online data breach ever recorded.

Source: CSO

The Pokemon Go app was launched. Every kid growing up in the 90s finally got the opportunity to catch ‘em all. The app used augmented reality that let people use their smartphones to see Pokemons outside and find them in their neighborhood. For around two months, the whole world went crazy about Pokemon Go.

Source: PopularMechanics

Technologies & Companies Pokemon Go – an augmented reality mobile game created for Android and iOS smartphones. The Pokemon Company and Niantic created and published the game in 2016 as a part of the Pokemon franchise. It’s a free to play game with in-app purchases. At first users could use the game to find around 150 types of Pokemon, and by 2020, the number was increased to 600. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 1,739,031,487 hosts 326,400,000 domain names 170,129,118 websites 3.696 million Internet users

2017

The TikTok social network was launched globally. One of the latest successful social networking platforms that emphasized short music & video clips. TikTok was the global version of the app called “Douyin” that was launched in China in 2016.

Source: Wikipedia

People Zhang Yiming – born in Longyan, Fujian, China in 1985. An internet entrepreneur who founded TikTok, ByteDance, and Musical.ly. ByteDance is the most valuable startup ever, estimated at over $75 billion. He is also the CEO and Chairman of the company. Yiming is the richest person in China. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & Companies TikTok – a social network owned by ByteDance. It has a unique format that includes short videos with dancing, comedy sketches, and lip-syncing. It’s a viral video platform that’s been downloaded over 2 billion times and has 100 million active users in the US. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 1,734,290,608 hosts 330,600,000 domain names 171,959,694 websites 4.156 million Internet users

2018

The Cambridge Analytica scandal broke out in March. The company harvested the personal data of over 50 million Facebook users and used it to help promote the campaign of Donald Trump during his election run. This sparked a lot of debate about online privacy and how Facebook was treating user data.

Source: The Guardian

Technologies & companies Cambridge Analytica – a political consulting company founded in 2013 in London, UK. The company was involved in numerous political campaigns, but its name became known to the public during the Cambridge Analytica–Facebook scandal in 2018. Shortly after, the company was closed. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 1,656,556,205 hosts 348,700,000 domain names 187,919,646 websites 4.313 million Internet users

2019

5G was introduced across the United States. The first two cities that got 5G were Chicago and Minneapolis, followed by Denver, Providence, and many others. This technology offered a substantial increase in internet speed that is expected to help the development and implementation of many other new technologies.

Source: Verizon

Technologies & companies 5G – the 5th generation standard for broadband cellular networks. It’s the successor of 4G and even though it’s still not used in all countries and regions, experts expect that it will be implemented by networks across the globe in the near future. 5G will offer a substantial increase in bandwidth speeds going up to dozens of gigabits per second. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 1,268,289,402 hosts 351,800,000 domain names 183,209,340 websites 4.536 million Internet users

To Be Continued

Recommended reading:

• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1828–1844 Timeline (Part 1)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1845-1940 Timeline (Part 2)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1941-1970 Timeline (Part 3)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1971–1979 Timeline (Part 4)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1980–1989 Timeline (Part 5)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1990–1999 Timeline (Part 6)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 2000-2010 Timeline (Part 7)