The others
SNAPCHAT: Snapchat is a free messaging and social networking app for smartphones. Available for both Android and iOS, Snapchat allows you to send text messages, pictures, and short videos to friends and family. One of the core concepts of the mobile app is that any picture, video, or message – aka snap – you send by default is made available to the receiver for only a short time before it becomes inaccessible. This temporary or ephemeral nature of the app was originally designed to encourage a more natural flow of interaction.
Snapchat was created by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown, former students at Stanford University.
TELEGRAM: Telegram is a multi-platform messaging service founded by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov. It first rolled out on iOS and Android in late 2013, and now has an estimated 550 million monthly users. Telegram’s user base tends to increase whenever a privacy scandal hits one of its larger competitors (WhatsApp & Messenger).
Telegram’s core functionality is the same as most other messaging apps: You can message other Telegram users, create group conversations, call contacts, make video calls, and send files and stickers. However, there are a few specific features that make it work differently from other chat apps.
REDDIT: Reddit is a website where a community of registered users (redditors) submits content. Its format resembles a traditional bulletin board system, allowing users to post messages and links to other websites and comment on each other’s posts. A voting system ranks entries; other users can vote comments and posts up (upvoted) or down. Users who post and comment receive “karma” for upvotes and lose karma for downvotes.
PINTEREST: Pinterest is a social site where you can collect and share images of anything you find interesting. You can also visually discover new interests by browsing the collections of other Pinterest users. Here’s how to get started using this uniquely creative social sharing tool.
WHATSAPP: WhatsApp was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton who had previously spent 20 years combined at Yahoo. WhatsApp joined Facebook in 2014 but continues to operate as a separate app with a laser focus on building a messaging service that works fast and reliably anywhere in the world.
WhatsApp started as an alternative to SMS. This product now supports sending and receiving a variety of media: text, photos, videos, documents, and location, as well as voice calls. Some of your most personal moments are shared with WhatsApp, which is why WhatsApp built end-to-end encryption into the app. We also have WhatsApp Business now.
You’d learn more about WhatsApp Business much later.
TWITCH: Founded in 2011, Twitch is a platform for live video streaming, offering nearly anything you’d want to watch, from cooking, music, Q&A sessions, and — the leading driver of traffic — video games. It originally started as a spinoff division of Justin.tv, with gaming as the main priority. Twitch became so popular, it led to an entire rebrand of Justin.tv, which changed its name to Twitch Interactive in 2014. Then, later that year, Twitch Interactive was acquired by Amazon.
TUMBLR: Tumblr launched in 2007. It is best described as a micro-blogging site which feels like a mix of Twitter, WordPress, and Facebook. Users can post text, images, videos, audio, and links. If you follow the blogs of other users, you’ll see the content they post in your own feed.
The content on Tumblr is enormously varied. You can find Tumblr blogs dedicated to everything from fashion to space exploration. There are currently hundreds of millions of blogs on the service.