Curated category
IOS 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…
- Photos (Apple)Photos, Apple's photo management and editing application, will find a picture if you simply describe it. Type "cat in a box" into its search bar, and the app…
- 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 MaxHBO Max arrived in the United States on the 27th of May 2020, and its first major test of judgment came within days. On the 9th of June 2020, amid protests…
- 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…
- Apple MusicApple Music arrived on the 30th of June 2015, carried in on a boast from Sony Music chief executive Doug Morris. On the 7th of June 2015, Morris told…
- 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.
- Peacock (streaming service)In January 2024, Peacock broadcast its first exclusive NFL playoff game. No postseason NFL game had ever been available only through a streaming service…
- 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…
- 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.
- 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…
- SiriSiri was not born inside Apple. The voice assistant that would come to inhabit hundreds of millions of iPhones started life at SRI International, the…
- 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…