Facebook is a social media platform that allows millions of people to connect worldwide. It is an easy-to-use app with a user-friendly interface. You can share unlimited photos, texts, videos, and stories with Facebook. As a leading networking platform, here are some top contenders of Facebook.
#1. Twitter
- Founded: 21 March 2006
- Headquarters: San Fransisco, California
Need To Know
Twitter was designed by Google’s ex-employees Evan Williams and Biz Stone, on 21 March 2006. On leaving google, they launched a podcast platform called Odeo. Noah Glass came up with the name twttr. On 15 July 2006, Jack Dorsey joined the team, and the full version of Twitter was launched.
With Twitter, you can send short messages called tweets. You can include pictures and videos with your messages. It is an app for journalists who want their stories to go viral. You can be a part of real-time events through Twitter, getting information and contributing. As of 2017, Twitter had 330 million active users making it one of the leading social platforms.
#2. Snapchat.
- Founded: September 2011
- Headquarters: Santa Monica, California
Need To Know
Snapchat was developed in September 2011 by Van Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown. They were students of Stanford University at the time. Reggie Brown wrote the code for Snapchat, but he was ousted from the company. It started as Picaboo, which was only available on iOS on July 8, 2011. When it started, you could only share pictures. Then they added the video feature in 2012.
From 2014, Snapchat added several features that made the app even better. There is the video chat, direct messaging, memories, stories similar to Instagram’s, Snapcash, Geofilters, Voice Filters, and they keep adding handy features. Snapchat, which was at 10 million active daily users in 2016, now has over 300 million daily users. And the numbers keep rising.
#3. Pinterest
- Founded: December 2009
- Headquarters: San Fransisco, California
Need To Know
Pinterest was developed in December 2009 by Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp, and Paul Sciarra. Ben and Paul had built Tote, a shopping comparison app, that year. With Tote, users could share their favorite items with other users. A prototype of Pinterest was launched in March 2010 as a closed beta.
Pinterest offers a grid-based layout for millions of images. A user can only share photos, videos, and links. You can like, comment, save photos as pins, and follow other users. In 2013, Pinterest introduced Promoted Pins, similar to sponsored Facebook promoted posts. It allows you to promote your pins early in a user’s search.
#4. LinkedIn
- Founded: December 2002
- Headquarters: Sunnyvale, California,
Need to Know
LinkedIn was founded by Venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly, and Jean-Luc Vaillant in December 2002. The website was launched in May 2003. LinkedIn became profitable in 2007 when it allowed users to advertise. In 2008, LinkedIn launched the app, making social networking possible via the website and an app.
With LinkedIn, you can grow your brand. Branding involves constantly maintaining a professional image with pictures and captions. You can seek jobs from job listings posted every day. LinkedIn tailors the job lists towards your occupation or expertise. While you add friends on Facebook, each person you follow is added to your connections. Currently, LinkedIn has about 800 million users in 200 countries.
#5. WeChat
- Founded: January 21, 2011
- Headquarters: Singapore
Need To Know
WeChat was created by Allen Zheng and Ma Huateng on January 21, 2011. Developed by Tencent in China, it was initially Weixin. The name was changed to WeChat in 2012 to accommodate the international market.
WeChat offers services provided by Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, and Apple Pay. With WeChat, you enjoy text messaging, video and voice calling, group messaging and calling, WeChat moments, WeChat Pay, and translation services. WeChat is compatible with iOS, Android, Windows devices, macOS, and web browsers. You can even play games like the ‘message in the bottle’ game. As of 2020, WeChat had over 1.2 million active users.
#6. TikTok
- Founded: September 2016
- Headquarters: Culver City, California
Need To Know
TikTok was developed by Bytedance in September 2016. It started as Douyin, which was only available in China. It was then rebranded as Tiktok in September 2017 and became available internationally. They merged with musical.ly in August 2018 to further expand Tiktok’s reach.
Tiktok allows you to create videos from different features. You can lip-sync, choreography, do a free dance, or act out sketches. Video limits used to be 15 seconds long, but you can create a video up to 3 minutes long. You can also upload videos you made outside TikTok for editing. Editing includes adding a song, special effect, or a filter. It doesn’t have a chat feature, but users can follow, like, and comment on other users’ posts.
#7. Quora
- Founded: June 21, 2009
- Headquarters: Mountain View, California
Need To Know
Quora was founded by Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever on June 21, 2009. They both worked at Facebook before leaving to create Quora.
Quora is available on the internet and a mobile app. And it comes in five languages: English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.
Quora facilitates conversations. It is a platform where you can ask questions and provide answers to questions. The questions and answers are usually of high quality. It allows you to follow educating topics that are within your interest. You can also vote on answers, highlighting the most accurate and correcting the wrong ones. Quora has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to use.
#8. Reddit
- Founded: June 23, 2005
- Headquarters: San Fransisco, California
Need To Know
Reddit was developed by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian on June 23, 2005. They were roommates at the University of Virginia at the time. And at the time too, Condé Nast Publications bought Reddit in 2006. Advance publications later acquired it in 2011 and remained a shareholder to date.
If you’re using Reddit for the first time, you might find it difficult navigating around. But long-time users stay stuck with it. It is used by people who share texts, images, or links to communities within Reddit. Communities are like forums, with varieties of topics to join. Just like Quora, you can vote for or against content. Most users on Reddit are anonymous, making this social media forum fun to use. Despite its confusing nature, Reddit has over 430 million active users.
#9. Vkontakte
- Founded: October 10, 2006
- Headquarters: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Need To Know
Vkontakte was launched on October 10, 2006, by Vkontakte company. It was created by Pavel Durov after graduating from St Petersburg State University.
Pavel, however, is no longer with VK company. The Mail.ru group of Russia now has full ownership.
VK is Russia’s Facebook. Firstly, if you check their website, you’d think you were on Facebook. VK has extensive profiling, which allows you to get details as personal as a user’s smoking or drinking habits. VK is ranked as the 6th most popular social network in the world. Other parts of the world are growing to love it, with 460 million active users as of 2017. The only setback with VK is that privacy is not guaranteed. It has experienced a security breach in the past with the leak of its user’s sensitive information.
#10. Youtube
- Founded: February 14, 2005
- Headquarters: San Bruno, California
Need To Know
YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. They were ex-employees of PayPal. The site was officially launched in December 2005. At the time, you could only post a 30seconds video. Google acquired YouTube on October 9, 2006.
YouTube is a social media platform known for uploading video content only. YouTube live was launched in April 2011 but only to some persons. YouTube allows you to leave comments on a video, like, dislike, or share a video. It now has several other features, including YouTube Go, YouTube Premium, YouTube kids, YouTube shorts, and YouTube stories. YouTube story started in 2008. It is similar to Instagram stories but is only accessible by users with more than 10,000 subscribers. YouTube shorts is the most recent addition to Youtube. It is like TikTok, allowing you to create short videos with exciting editing tools.