The average smartphone user spends 2 hours and 20 minutes a day or 70 hours on social media apps every month and 55% of the population, or 4.88 billion people, have social media accounts. It is the most popular type of internet service, responsible for hundreds of billions of interactions every day. In the late 1990s, as the internet was moving to web 2.0 stage, several online messaging and social networks launched with new multimedia services, propelling them to new levels of popularity. Liv...| Business of Apps
A bit of an unconventional name for a social app but one that fits with the main function of Gas, the act of “gassing” friends or crushes through polls and giving them compliments. Targeted at high school teenagers and only available in a select few states in America and Canada, the app creates polls such as “Who should DJ at every party?” or “Who do you secretly admire?” with the name of four people at the school. The names can be shuffled or skipped, which provides the user with...| Business of Apps
When the deal to acquire Twitter was finalized, several Twitter alternatives were floated for those that did not like Musk’s politics, his ideas for Twitter, or just wanted a new microblogging platform. Bluesky has been one of the few to maintain steady growth since the acquisition, with a new surge post US election. Bluesky was formed inside of Twitter by the then-CEO Jack Dorsey, as a potential way to decentralize Twitter. After two years in development and consultation, the ‘Authentica...| Business of Apps
Instagram is a photo and short video sharing social network. It was founded in 2010 by software engineer Michel Krieger and computer programmer and former Google-employee Kevin Systrom. The iOS release took place in October 2010, and the Android in April 2012. The idea for Instagram came when Systrom was holidaying with his partner in Mexico in 2010. He and Krieger had a developed a multi-feature social platform called Burbn, focused on location sharing. He was contemplating adding photo sha...| Business of Apps
Pinterest is an image search platform, which functions somewhat like an online mood board. Users pin images they like to boards. Images are uploaded by users, and can then be re-pinned by others. Pinterest was launched by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp in 2010. Silbermann had previously worked in the advertising department at Google. Prior to Pinterest, Silbermann and Sciarra launched an app called Tote, which failed to gain traction. Launched on March 2010 to family and friends,...| Business of Apps
Learn how to use Facebook Marketplace to boost your revenue with more local sales. Get tips from the pros and craft your first listing like a boss.| madgicx.com
With the apparent self-implosion at Twitter, Instagram-parent Meta launched into the microblogging scene with Threads. Aimed at users and advertisers fed up with Twitter’s handling following the Musk takeover, it made a large splash in the first week with over 100 million sign-ups. This was helped along by Twitter announcing it had temporarily limited the amount of tweets users could view in one day. Threads works in a similar way to Twitter, where a mix of short posts from accounts followe...| Business of Apps
Alex Russell on browsers, standards, and the process of progress.| Infrequently Noted
As of 2025, more than 3.07 billion people use Facebook. Find detailed Facebook statistics on its users, demographics, etc.| DemandSage
Learn all about how to use B2B social selling channels to grow and scale your business.| TaskDrive
BeReal is the newest social app to make its mark, coming at a time when many were disillusioned with Instagram and its focus on algorithmic content. In 2022, it broke out in the US and UK with millions switching to the app, but has struggled to retain those users long term. Built by ex-GoPro employee Alexis Barreyat and Kévin Perreau and launched in late 2019, the basic premise of the app is to take a photo with the back and front camera at a random time each day. The impromptu nature of the...| Business of Apps
Do you know how many people use Facebook every day? Or how effective is Facebook advertising for businesses? Check out these latest Facebook statistics and facts.| SocialPilot
Snapchat is an image and video messaging app, developed by Stanford University students Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown in 2011. Its unique selling point was that photos and videos sent to friends would only be viewable for a set duration of 1 to 10 seconds, although Snapchat has removed these limitations. A number of additional features have also been added, the first of which was Stories. This allowed users to post photos and videos to a feed for 24 hours. The feature was notor...| Business of Apps
In a second attempt to be one of the first inductees of the startup incubator Y Combinator, University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian built Reddit, which they labelled “the front page of the internet”. The site functionality remains much the same as it was back in 2005. Users write posts, upload photos, videos and link to other parts of the internet. To organise the content, Redditors upload to specific subreddits. If the post receives a lot of attention, it may be...| Business of Apps
When Microsoft announced Teams in November 2016, it entered a market firmly controlled by Slack, which had popularized business text chat as a convenient solution to email. From day one, Slack made it known it did not like Teams. But the rivalry could have been an acquisition in another timeline. According to multiple reports, Microsoft planned an $8 billion bid for Slack, but co-founder Bill Gates argued that Microsoft should make use of Skype to build a competitor. Instead of Skype, Microso...| Business of Apps
Twitter is a real-time microblogging platform, publicly launched in July 2006. At launch, its defining features were the tight limits placed on each post, known at a tweet. Originally, users could only use 140 characters, although that has been elongated over the years. Formed by former Odeo employees Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the site originally used SMS to send tweets onto the network. It received its first boost of users at SXSW 2007, when the founders showed al...| Business of Apps