Social media sites are a recent but impactful phenomenon in our lives. They emerged shortly after the internet became available to the public. At first, the internet was only used for the exchange of information, but the internet’s potential for sociability became quickly known. The first major social media site that everyone of the era remembers is MySpace. Several years after, this was replaced with Facebook and Twitter. Sites like Instagram and Pinterest found themselves a unique niche in social media and flourished. All of these sites, even MySpace, are operational today. Their popularity has become so unprecedented that they are literally universal, and their creators are multimillionaires and billionaires. Below is more information on each individual social media site.

• MySpace emerged in the 1990’s as the first personal profile social media site to go global. Its concept, complete with space for pictures, personal information and even a theme song, struck mass appeal with many age groups. It quickly became the most popular form of self-expression on the internet. It has since become outdated for mass social media, but is still popular among some musician circles.
• Facebook is the most well known and widely used social media site to date. Creator Mark Zuckerberg struck gold when he launched Facebook and it made him one of the wealthiest people on earth. There is no social media site in history that has garnered as many personal accounts as Facebook. The success of Facebook as a social media site can be attributed to its adaptability, intuition and intelligence in its programming.
• Twitter is not far behind Facebook in popularity, and is actually preferred to Facebook by many people. Twitter is known for the concise sharing that members do socially. Rather than a complex profile with a great deal of information and images about a person, Twitter is enjoyed for its minimalism in how people engage socially.
• Instagram is a social media site devoted to images. There is little text on this site and a great deal of personal image sharing, largely of personal photos that represent positive times in a person’s life.
• Pinterest is a niche site devoted to creative expression and ideas. This site is a network for the sharing of creative ideas and do-it-yourself projects.