Curated category
Android (operating system) software
- Steam (service)Steam, Valve's digital distribution platform for PC games, launched in September 2003 as something far more modest than what it would become: a software…
- FacebookFacebook launched on the 4th of February 2004 from a Harvard dorm room, and within two decades it would be used by more than three billion people every month.
- TwitterIn March 2006, Jack Dorsey sent the first message from a service called twttr to a small group of Odeo employees. The prototype relied on Short Message…
- HBO MaxWarnerMedia announced its intention to launch a new streaming service on the 10th of October 2018. The initial plan called for three tiers and a late 2019…
- SpotifySpotify began not with a boardroom strategy but with a misheard word. When Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon were choosing a name for their new company…
- TikTokTikTok was launched into the international market in September 2017, but the question of who actually controls it has never been fully settled.
- Amazon Prime VideoOn the 7th of September 2006, Amazon launched a service called Amazon Unbox in the United States. This early iteration allowed users to download movies and…
- InstagramInstagram reached one billion registered users in June 2018 - a number that took Facebook four years longer to achieve. The platform launched for iOS in…
- NetflixNetflix started not as a streaming service but as a company that mailed DVDs in red envelopes. Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings founded it on the 29th of…
- HidiveHidive is an American subscription streaming service that delivers Japanese anime to paid subscribers, its name always stylized in capital letters.
- MyspaceMyspace launched on the 1st of August, 2003, and within a few years became the most visited website in the United States, beating out Yahoo Mail and Google…
- StubHubStubHub traces its origin to the late 1990s, when Eric Baker went looking for a secondhand ticket to a Broadway performance of The Lion King.
- RedditReddit launched in June 2005 with a problem its founders could not admit to anyone: the site was empty. Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, two roommates fresh…
- Google AssistantGoogle Assistant had spread to more than 1 billion devices by 2020, only four years after its debut. It started small, folded into a messaging app and a…
- Peacock (streaming service)On the 14th of January 2019, NBCUniversal announced plans to launch an over-the-top streaming service in 2020. Bonnie Hammer led the division known as…
- Disney+Disney+ launched at midnight Pacific Time on the 12th of November 2019, in three countries simultaneously: the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands.
- HuluHulu launched on the 29th of October 2007, and its name came from a pair of Mandarin Chinese phrases. The CEO at the time, Jason Kilar, explained that the…
- Microsoft TranslatorMicrosoft Translator began not as a product aimed at consumers, but as an internal research project buried inside Microsoft's own knowledge base.
- YouTubeYouTube uploaded its very first video on the 23rd of April 2005 - a clip called "Me at the zoo" showing co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo.
- DiscordDiscord was built to solve a problem its founder could not stop running into. Jason Citron, while running a game development studio, kept watching his team…
- Twitch (service)Twitch is an American live-streaming platform that began its life in June 2011 not as a standalone product, but as a calculated spin-off carved out of a…
- CrunchyrollCrunchyroll launched on the 14th of May 2006 as a pirate site. It hosted East Asian shows subtitled by fans, operating entirely outside the law.
- Microsoft CopilotIn 2019, Microsoft began pouring billions of dollars into OpenAI. This massive financial commitment established a partnership that would eventually birth…
- Paramount+Paramount+ did not start under that name. On the 28th of October 2014, CBS Corporation switched on a service called CBS All Access.
- FunimationFunimation started not in a boardroom but in a conversation between two relatives. In the early 1990s, a Japanese-born businessman named Gen Fukunaga…
- MyAnimeListIn 2015, MyAnimeList drew 120 million visitors in a single month. Every one of them came to a site run not by a company but by volunteers.
- Google PhotosGoogle Photos began in May 2015, when Google split it off from Google+, the company's former social network. Free of that network, the service posed a…
- SnapchatSnapchat launched on the 8th of July 2011 under the name Picaboo, and the core idea was almost recklessly simple: what if the photos you sent just vanished?
- Yahoo FinanceYahoo Finance sits at the center of how tens of millions of people track their money. By May 2024, the site counted approximately 150 million monthly active…