Social Media Platforms

Social Media Platforms That Thrived (or Died) in the Decade Past

The increasingly competitive market space and the ingrained fleeting nature of social media forced some platforms to shut shop as well. The biggest shockers were Orkut, Google+, Yahoo Messenger, and Blackberry Messenger or BBM, as users fondly liked to it. In the face of the competition, these didn't manage to grab their audience's attention long enough and were forced to close down. As far as social media cares , this was the last decade of WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok.

We have compiled a list of big social media networking platforms that debuted in and reigned in the last decade, and a list of platforms that succumbed under pressure. Some of the platforms that died saw significant highs at the beginning, only to be shut down years later. This list is filled with nostalgia, heartache, and is a nagging reminder to a massive life reality check – nothing lasts forever.

Social Media Platforms That Were Born [And Still Exist] In This Decade (2010-2019)

Instagram

Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms in the world right now. The image-sharing app was launched in 2010 by creators Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and was acquired by Facebook in 2012. It enjoys over one billion monthly active users, and has 500 million users who use Instagram Stories every day. The app was also the second most downloaded free app on the App Store in 2018 (2019 stats still not available). Instagram allows users to share photos and videos, lets you follow friends and influencers, and even post 24-hour snippets called Instagram Stories. Currently, Instagram competes with Snapchat and TikTok in the social networking space.

Snapchat

Snapchat arrived at a time when Facebook and Twitter were already extremely popular, and Instagram was gaining momentum as well. Launched in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, the photo and video sharing app now enjoys 210 million daily active users (as of October 2019). Snapchat played on the idea of disappearing messages, something that wasn't tapped into before. This feature has since been aped by Facebook in all of its properties – including WhatsApp and Instagram.

Telegram

Telegram is essentially a WhatsApp alternative, and has grown quite a bit of fan following since its launch in 2013. As of March 2018, the app enjoys 200 million monthly active users, and Telegram gets new features regularly via updates. It competes directly with WhatsApp that has taken the instant messaging world by storm.

TikTok

Having launched in 2017, TikTok is touted to be the fastest growing social media app out there. It has almost 500 million active users, and was the third most downloaded app in Q1 2019 with 188 million downloads. This is 70 percent growth from Q1 2018. The app looks to fill the void that Vine left, but it offers a lot more. Influencing creators on TikTok are considered celebrities, and it is well on its way to world domination. The latest data from App Annie suggests that TikTok is constant its explosive growth round the world, with the insights company ranking TikTok just behind Instagram in terms of monthly active users through the third quarter of 2019.

Pinterest

Founded in 2010, Pinterest offers online discovery of information in the form of images, GIFs, and videos. As of August 2019, the platform has reached 300 million active users. Over time, the platform has attracted over 200 billion Pinterest pins, and over 4 billion Pinterest boards. Interestingly the gender parity is quite large, and 70 percent of Pinterest users are females.

Quora

If you're looking for answers, Quora is possibly the place to go to. From questions like ‘Which is the best way to learn programming?' to questions like ‘Which is the best country to migrate from India and start a new life?' – all of these are answered in detailed manner by varied users. This platform was launched in 2010, and is now a pool of some great answers. Quora's userbase is constantly growing. It grew from 200 million monthly active users in 2017 to 300 million monthly active users in 2018.Quora was launched in 2010, and is now a pool of some great answers.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger was introduced as a separate app by the social giant in 2011, forcing users to download the app from the app stores if they wished to continue chatting to their Facebook friends. While user base stats of the app are not known, Facebook last year introduced AI bots for businesses to chat with clients easily.

Helo

Helo is a newly launched social media app made for the vernacular speaking audience. The app has seen a sharp rise since 2017, and it has 50 million active users in India alone. While traditional social media apps are available in the universal language of English, Helo tries to offer solace to the large vernacular speaking audience. The app supports 13 Indian languages.

ShareChat

ShareChat follows the same principle as Helo, and taps into the vernacular speaking audience as well. The Indic language-based social network ShareChat app has been growing steadily over the last two years. Launched in 2015, the app is now touted to be India's largest vernacular social media platform with nearly 60 million users. ShareChat has some big investors like Xiaomi and Twitter, and latest round of funding was led by the latter. The Bengaluru-based chat app startup is today valued at over $600 million.

WhatsApp

Wondering why WhatsApp is at the bottom of this list? Because, it was launched in the latter part of 2009 missing this decade by a few months. While this list is all about the social media platforms that launched and grew in this decade, we couldn't leave out WhatsApp as its evolution began in this decade, changing the digital social landscape of today. The app became the world's most popular messaging app in 2015, and as of February 2018, it enjoys more than 1.5 billion users worldwide.As of February 2018, WhatsApp enjoys more than 1.5 billion users worldwide.

 Social Media Platforms That Died This Decade (2010-2019)

Google+

Google+ was launched with a lot of promise in 2011, but succumbed to the competition from Facebook and others. The final nail on the coffin was a major security issue that was reportedly discovered, compelling Google to shut down Google+ in April this year. The company also claimed that its social platform wasn't experiencing enough usage or engagement from its users with most sessions maxing out at 5 seconds.

Orkut 

Orkut was a household name in India in the latter part of the last decade, but the growing popularity of Facebook got users to migrate from Orkut, leaving it no option but to shut down in 2014. Owner Google said that other platforms had outpaced Orkut's growth, and the website no longer exists. Google then pegged its hope on Google+, but sadly, that platform also fell off the shelf this year.Orkut was shut down in 2014 by Google

BlackBerry Messenger

BlackBerry Messenger also shut shop earlier in May this year, blaming the difficulty of bringing new users to BBM as one of the top reasons. BBM was one of the most loved instant messaging applications of its time, but its popularity dwindled as competing chat apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger gained momentum.

Yahoo Messenger

If you're a 90's kid, there are high chances that you've used most of the apps mentioned on this grim list. While these apps don't exist today, they were once an integral part of our online social life. Yahoo Messenger was once such instant messaging app that died last year. In its prime years, the service was the most used as it was an alternative to emails and SMS messaging. However, with the arrival of smartphones, Facebook, and eventually WhatsApp - Yahoo Messenger lost its steam and users started to switch.

iTunes Ping 

Apple's promising iTunes Ping social network failed to gain traction that it had hoped from the users. The music-based social network was launched in 2010, and was shut two years later. It is one of the biggest examples of Apple having difficulty in getting people to use its web-based services.