How Did Social Networks Emerge? History, Precursors (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit) and a Simple Guide to Starting Your Own Social Network

What exactly is a social network?

A social network is a website or app where you create a profile, connect with people (friends/following/groups), and share content that can be liked, commented on, and forwarded. The key point is that the ties between accounts are visible and usable (the so-called social graph).

Before Facebook: campus chats, “bulletin boards,” and discussion groups

Before the web existed, students were already chatting in real time—on systems like the university platform PLATO (Talkomatic, 1973). A few years later came BBS (Bulletin Board Systems): home “message boards” you dialed into by modem, left posts on, downloaded files from, and formed communities around. In parallel, Usenet grew with hundreds to thousands of topic-focused groups. Together, these three branches set the ground rules of online social life: handles, threads, moderation, reputation.

The first web-based social networks: profiles, friends, messages

In the late 1990s, the first web networks with profiles and friendships appeared. SixDegrees (1997) brought a profile, a contacts list, and the ability to browse connections into one place. A few years later, Friendster showed massive demand for a “network of friends,” but ran into technical limits. MySpace (2003) connected profiles with music and pop culture—for many people, it was their first everyday encounter with a social network.

Facebook: from a campus directory to “the feed of everything”

Facebook launched on February 4, 2004 at Harvard, quickly spread to other schools, and eventually opened to the public. The turning point came in 2006 with the introduction of the News Feed: you no longer jumped from profile to profile—you had one endless stream of posts from your connections. This design shift became an industry standard and accelerated what we now think of as “scrolling.”

Instagram: when mobile and filters changed photography

Before Instagram, there were photo sites (e.g., Flickr) and mobile “retro” filter apps (Hipstamatic). Instagram (2010) simplified it into a few taps: take a photo → edit → share. It was “mobile-first” from the start, so it perfectly matched the smartphone era. Photo albums became everyday visual storytelling.

TikTok: short videos and extreme personalization

TikTok didn’t invent short video—Vine had already popularized 6-second clips. But TikTok (global expansion from 2017/2018 after merging with Musical.ly) combined an intuitive editor, licensed music, and a powerful recommendation system. The key is that the feed adapts very quickly based on which videos you pause on—so it feels “tailor-made.”

Reddit: community above all

Reddit (2005) is a network of thousands of communities—subreddits—where links are shared and discussions happen. Upvotes/downvotes determine visibility, and moderators enforce the rules. In that sense, Reddit picked up on the culture of Usenet and Slashdot, but added simple community management and scaling. In 2024, it went public, confirming its influence beyond the tech bubble.

What came “before” today’s networks (briefly, in plain English)

• Before Facebook: SixDegrees → Friendster → MySpace. People got used to profiles and friends; Facebook combined it all and sped it up with the News Feed.
• Before Instagram: photo sites and mobile filters; Instagram won on simplicity and a creator community.
• Before TikTok: Vine and experiments with vertical video; TikTok added fast personalization and music.
• Before Reddit: Usenet, Slashdot, Digg; Reddit turned crowd curation into a daily habit.

A timeline anyone can follow: from PLATO to the fediverse

• 1973: university chats (Talkomatic) – the first “we’re all typing at once” experience.
• 1978–1990s: BBS and Usenet – dial-up communities and large discussion groups.
• 1997–2003: SixDegrees, Friendster, MySpace – profiles, friendships, music; social networks go mainstream.
• 2004–2012: Facebook and the news feed; smartphones turn sharing into an everyday habit.
• 2010–2018: Instagram and short, vertical video.
• 2018–today: TikTok and personalization; at the same time, the open world of the “fediverse” (Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube) grows on the ActivityPub standard.

People and technologies that made it possible

• Tim Berners-Lee – proposed the World Wide Web at CERN (1989).
• Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn – co-creators of TCP/IP, the foundational internet protocols.
• Chris Messina – proposed using the hashtag (#) to group topics (2007).
• Platform founders: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Kevin Systrom & Mike Krieger (Instagram), Zhang Yiming/ByteDance (TikTok/Douyin), Steve Huffman & Alexis Ohanian (Reddit).

What a social network needs (checklist)

1. Identity/profile (avatar, bio, privacy)
2. Visible relationships (following/friendships/groups)
3. Sharing and interaction (comments, reactions, messages)
4. Discoverability and linking (permalinks, hashtags, search)
5. Moderation and rules (community guidelines, safety processes)
6. (Optional) interoperability via open standards like ActivityPub

How to start your own social network: centralized vs. federated

The fastest route is to use open-source software. If you want “microblogging” but don’t want to be an isolated island, choose Mastodon—it uses the ActivityPub standard, so your community can connect with other servers (similar to how email works across different providers). From a technical standpoint, plan on your own server (Linux), a domain, email sending, HTTPS, and backups.
Operating in the EU means having GDPR (personal data) covered and understanding the DSA (rules for online platforms). At a minimum, you need a privacy policy page, clear community rules, and reporting processes.

Myths vs. reality (briefly)

• “Social networks started with Facebook.” No—their roots go back to campus chats, BBS, and Usenet; Facebook mostly unified multiple ideas and popularized the feed.
• “TikTok is just dancing.” No—the short-video format carries news, education, and entertainment; what matters is feed personalization.
• “Twitter invented hashtags.” No—they came from the community (Chris Messina), and platforms adopted them later.

Interesting numbers (2025)

Worldwide, there are roughly 5.24 billion social-media “user identities” (not always unique individuals). At the same time, the share of people who at least occasionally get news primarily through social networks is growing.

Videos to round things out (paste as a plain URL in Gutenberg)

The history of social media in 90 seconds (CNBC):

Sources

1. Britannica – A: https://www.britannica.com/topic/SixDegreescom B: https://www.britannica.com/topic/FriendsterC: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Myspace D: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Flickrcom E: https://www.britannica.com/money/Reddit F: https://www.britannica.com/technology/USENET G: https://www.britannica.com/topic/chat-room H: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vinton-Cerf
2. History.com – A: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/february-4/facebook-launches-mark-zuckerberg
3. Wikipedia – A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_(Facebook) B: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service)
4. Wired – A: https://www.wired.com/2010/02/0216cbbs-first-bbs-bulletin-board/ B: https://www.wired.com/2017/05/oral-history-hashtag/
5. W3C / ActivityPub – A: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ B: https://www.w3.org/news/2018/activitypub-is-now-a-w3c-recommendation/
6. Mastodon (documentation) – A: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/install/
7. TikTok / ByteDance – A: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/musical-ly-and
8. Reuters (Reddit IPO) – A: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/reddit-set-hotly-anticipated-debut-after-pricing-ipo-top-range-2024-03-21/
9. DataReportal (Digital 2025) – A: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-global-overview-report
10. Pew Research Center – A: https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/
11. YouTube (CNBC video) – A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgF3xh76Hcg
12. Wall Street Journal (video) – A: https://www.wsj.com/tech/tiktok-algorithm-video-investigation-11626877477