Flickr started in 2002 as the “web-based massively multiplayer online game” The Game Neverending by Stewart Butterfield’s company Ludicorp. In 2004, “a Flash application that was mainly just a chat environment with real-time photo sharing” (Eric Costello) was being spun out as “a stripped-down Game Neverending interface, with photos instead of game objects” (Costello). You could “open a Flash-based chat window in your browser[,] upload images from your PC and drag them into a chat room for all to see” (Dan Tynan). By 2005, it had become a “[w]eb app for photo sharing we now call Flickr” (Costello), allowing for asynchronous photo management and sharing.
Instagram started as the “location-based iPhone app […] Burbn [that] let users check in at particular locations, make plans for future check-ins, earn points for hanging out with friends, and post pictures of the meet-ups” (Megan Garber) – but soon focused on photo sharing.
Slack started in 2011 as Glitch, “a puzzle-heavy, [w]eb-based social MMO” (Daniel Terdiman) by Stewart Butterfield’s company Tiny Speck, which had been founded in 2009. By 2013, what had started as “a communication tool [the] team had developed for internal use, a chat-based tool for [the] remote team” (Reid Hoffman) during the development of Glitch, had turned into Slack, a searchable team communication and knowledge management tool.
WhatsApp started as a way to broadcast tiny pieces of text to your friends as status updates. “Jan [Koum] was showing me his address book. His thinking was it would be really cool to have statuses next to individual names of the people.” (Alex Fishman) “The statuses would show if you were on a call, your battery was low, or you were at the gym.” (Parmy Olson)
YouTube started as an online dating site. “We always thought there was something with video there, but what would be the actual practical application? We thought dating would be the obvious choice.” (Steve Chen) “The idea was for single people to make videos introducing themselves and saying what they were looking for.” (Richard Nieva)
Groupon started as “an online activism platform called The Point”. Having “worked on it a year”, they instead tried “a coupon for pizza at a pizzeria located in their building lobby”, “loaded up coupons and hand-emailed them to people” (Adam L. Penenberg), which became Groupon.
Working on “a camera platform with a cloud portion for storing photos online” (Jay Alabaster) and pitching to investors in 2004, Android, started by Andy Rubin, was acquired by Google in 2005. Due to declining growth, the team “decided digital cameras wasn’t actually a big enough market” (Andy Rubin). Focusing on the market for mobile handsets instead, and considering “its product to be a platform for selling other services and products, the company aimed for growth, not per-unit income” (Jay Alabaster), ultimately releasing Android as part of the Open Handset Alliance in 2007.
Twitter started as a way to use text messages (SMS) to communicate not just with individuals but with a small group of people. It was used mostly for short status updates. The service was spun off from Odeo, a podcasting company. “There was this path of discovery with something like that, where over time you figure out what it is. Twitter actually changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status updates and a social utility.” (Evan Williams)
Started by Jaded Pixel in 2005 and launched to the public in 2006, Shopify originally began as Snowdevil, “an online store to sell some high-end snowboards from small snowboard companies” (Trevor Cole), in late 2004.
Facebook started as an online directory of people with their names and photos, an online version of the traditional face books, for students at Harvard University.