They were once popular social media sites — what happened?
(NEXSTAR) — With the stroke of his pen, President Joe Biden seemingly started the countdown to the demise of TikTok. Though it’s possible the app won’t actually be banned in the U.S., the potential end of the platform prompted some social media users to reflect on those we have lost.
Here’s a look at the social media sites that have retired to the annals of the internet archive.
Myspace
What better place to start than MySpace, arguably the first major social networking site?
If you were a young Internet user in the 2000s, there’s a good chance you had a MySpace account. Users could stylize their (you guessed it) digital space with media, music, and messages with just a bit of coding.
From 2005 through 2008, Myspace largely reigned as the most popular destination online. Then it was face-to-face with a heavyweight opponent: Facebook. While they would both see roughly 115 million visitors per month in 2008, Facebook’s growth in the following years would prove too much for Myspace to compete with, Lifewire recounts.
You can still access Myspace — which is now a part of the People/Entertainment Weekly Network, according to its site — but it isn’t what it once was. You’ll find articles from 2022 on its homepage, and many images and links appear broken. Your “first friend” Tom is also still accessible, but he hasn’t posted on the platform since 2013 either.
Friendster
Before Myspace found its success, however, some were using Friendster. Launched in 2002, the site was similar to its impending competition, but with more emphasis on dating. It was short-lived, however, and was considered mostly defunct by 2006, USA Today reports, citing a 2013 study on Friendster.
The platform was sold to MOL Global, one of Asia’s largest Internet companies, in 2009, and users (at least those that stuck around) saw their data purged in 2011. That same year, Friendster was relaunched as a gaming site. Seven years later, the site was finally shuttered.
The site appears to be gearing up for a comeback, but cybersecurity experts warn that a lack of fanfare and additional information make it suspicious.
Vine
While Gen X and Millennials had Myspace, Gen Z (and younger Millennials) found themselves scrolling through Vine. Released in 2013, the video-based app was a quick success, giving users a seemingly endless supply of short, looping clips. Months before its launch, Twitter purchased the start-up for $30 million.
Three years after its launch, Vine announced it would be discontinued. At the time, the app was losing many of its creators to competitors like YouTube and Instagram. Twitter initially offered an archive of all of Vine’s videos, but that has since disappeared as well.
A week after completing his $44 billion takeover of then-Twitter, Elon Musk polled users about a potential return of Vine. Despite nearly 70% of the more than 4.9 million voters expressing support, the app didn’t come back. However, with a potential TikTok ban brewing, users may again find themselves doing it “for the Vine.”
Google+
Google can do many things, like answer your vague queries and direct you to the nearest coffee shop, but it could not, it seems, support a social media platform.
In 2011, the company launched Google+. Similar to Facebook, users could share messages and photos with their followers. Unlike Facebook, Google+ allowed users to group their friends into Circles that functioned almost like group chats.
In 2018, Google announced it would shut down the platform citing security concerns amid a data breach. The site is no longer accessible, with the URL taking users to updates on Google Workspace instead.
There are, of course, other internet icons we’ve lost over the last few decades. Early users may recall AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, which offered online messaging for 20 years. It signed off “for the last time” in 2017. Some programmers sought to bring it back, in a sense, but those efforts appear to have fallen flat.
If you’re an avid fan of relic social sites, you may have noticed one often-listed name missing from this list: Yik Yak. The app launched in 2013 and allowed users (mainly in high school and college) to post anonymously. It quickly rose to success but was frequently viewed as a space for bullying, harassment, and threats, prompting multiple schools to ban it. As USA Today reports, Yik Yak began losing popularity in 2016 and shut down a year later.
Last year, Sidechat, a platform also dedicated to anonymous posts, acquired Yik Yak, which was resurrected in 2021 under new ownership. Yik Yak was overhauled after the most recent acquisition, according to TechCrunch, but wasn’t very well received. The app is also not available to Android users.
It’s too soon to say if TikTok will go the way of Vine and Myspace or Yik Yak. Its China-based parent company, ByteDance, is expected to fight the ban enacted by the bill Biden signed. That legislation requires ByteDance to either sell off TikTok or face a U.S. ban on the app starting early next year.
ByteDance has characterized the law as an infringement on the free speech rights of its users, most of whom use the app for entertainment.
“We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail,” the company wrote on the social platform X.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.