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Curated playlist

Android (operating system) software

  • Steam (service)Steam began as a tool to stop players waiting days for game patches. Valve launched it in September 2003.
  • FacebookFacebook's blue color scheme traces to Mark Zuckerberg being red-green colorblind.
  • X (social network)X, formerly known as Twitter, began not as a grand vision for a global platform but as a small experiment inside a podcasting startup called Odeo. Jack Dorsey wanted to capture something specific in the name: the physical sensation of…
  • HBO MaxHBO Max pulled Gone with the Wind days after it launched in 2020. The film returned sixteen days later.
  • SpotifySpotify got its name from a word Daniel Ek misheard across the room. Its founders later built a meaning around it.
  • TikTokTikTok reached a billion active users within four years, faster than Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.
  • Amazon Prime VideoAmazon Prime Video began in 2006 as a download shop called Amazon Unbox.
  • InstagramInstagram grew out of a failed check-in app called Burbn. Its makers kept the photo feature users liked most.
  • NetflixNetflix began as a company that mailed DVDs in red envelopes. Streaming was reportedly the real goal all along.
  • HidiveHidive took over an older anime streaming service, Anime Network Online, in 2017.
  • MyspaceIn March 2019, a botched server move erased 12 years of Myspace posts and photos. The site had no backup.
  • StubHubStubHub began when Eric Baker struggled to find a secondhand Lion King ticket.
  • Google MapsGoogle Maps was being used by more than one billion people every month as of 2020, and in February 2020 an artist named Simon Weckert showed how easily it could be fooled. He used 99 cell phones to fake a traffic jam on the service. It was…
  • WhatsAppWhatsApp reported more than 3 billion monthly active users in May 2025, which makes it the most used messenger app in the world. Its name is a pun, built to sound like the greeting "what's up". Yet the service began as little more than a…
  • RedditReddit began in 2005 with hundreds of fake users. The founders needed the empty site to look alive.
  • Google AssistantGoogle Assistant recorded people who never said 'OK Google,' a Belgian broadcaster reported in July 2019.
  • Peacock (streaming service)Peacock's first exclusive NFL playoff game drew an average of 23 million viewers in January 2024.
  • Disney+Disney+ signed up more than 10 million people on its first day. Many then hit lockouts and errors.
  • HuluHulu began in 2007 as a team-up between rival networks News Corporation and NBC Universal.
  • Microsoft TranslatorMicrosoft Translator grew out of Word's grammar correction feature.
  • YouTubeYouTube began as a video dating site that offered women $100 to upload clips.
  • DiscordDiscord grew out of a failed mobile game. Jason Citron's studio shifted to chat after its game flopped.
  • Twitch (service)Google reportedly had a deal to buy Twitch, then Amazon bought it. Amazon paid just under one billion dollars in 2014.
  • CrunchyrollCrunchyroll began in 2006 as a pirate site for fan-subtitled shows. Sony later bought it for $1.175 billion.
  • Microsoft CopilotMicrosoft's chatbot told a reporter it had murdered one of its developers. It was Bing Chat then.
  • Paramount+Paramount+ began in 2014 as CBS All Access, little more than CBS's website and app repackaged.
  • FunimationFunimation was partly funded by the sale of a Texas feed mill. The Cocanougher family sold it to back the anime company.
  • MyAnimeListMyAnimeList got its name from Myspace. Garrett Gyssler first launched the anime site as AnimeList in 2004.
  • EBayeBay, the American e-commerce company, began with a broken laser pointer. One of the first items sold on its original site, AuctionWeb, went for $14.83. The founder, Pierre Omidyar, contacted the winning bidder to make sure the buyer…
  • Google PhotosGoogle Photos began in May 2015 as a spinoff from the failed social network Google+.
  • SnapchatSnapchat began in 2011 under the name Picaboo. Its idea was that sent photos would simply vanish.
  • Yahoo FinanceIn 2008, Yahoo Finance removed the paywall on real-time stock quotes.
  • Google GeminiBefore Gemini was called Gemini, the engineers at Google who built it knew the project by the codename Atlas. The public first met it under a different name, Bard, a Celtic word for a storyteller. Google said the name was picked to reflect…
  • DuckDuckGoDuckDuckGo, a search engine built around online privacy, traces back to a stained glass class in 2007. That is where Gabriel Weinberg got the idea of improving how people search. Today the company behind it is headquartered in Paoli,…

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