Loading...
Global search
Websites, products, technology, people, media, games, memes, slang and timeline events, all with sources.
Random strangers, webcam to webcam
Chatroulette paired you with a random stranger over webcam and let either of you hit Next. Built by 17-year-old Andrey Ternovskiy in late 2009, it exploded in February and March 2010, inspired piano...
Chat inside your inbox
Google Talk, and the Gmail Chat box built into the Gmail sidebar, let people message and video chat without installing anything. In 2010 it was quietly replacing AIM for many, and Google Voice calls...
Talk to strangers
Omegle launched in 2009 as an anonymous text chat with strangers and added video chat in March 2010 as Chatroulette's popularity surged. Its tagline, "Talk to strangers!", captured a moment when...
Nudges, winks and display names full of lyrics
Still called MSN by almost everyone, Windows Live Messenger was the dominant instant messenger outside the United States in 2010, with hundreds of millions of users. Its 2011 version, released in...
Buddy lists and away messages, fading fast
AIM had defined instant messaging in America for a decade, with its running-man icon, buddy lists, door-opening sounds and passive-aggressive away messages. By 2010 it was losing users to Facebook...
Conversations, labels, and 7 GB of storage
Gmail had left beta in 2009 and by 2010 was the email of choice for anyone under 35, with conversation threading, labels instead of folders and more than 7 GB of free storage. The year brought Google...
Flash games with achievements, bought by GameStop
Kongregate hosted thousands of free browser games with badges, chat rooms beside every game and a levelling system for players. GameStop bought it in July 2010, betting that browser games were the...
Microsoft's one-year-old "decision engine"
Bing had launched in June 2009 with a photographic homepage and a marketing budget that called it a "decision engine" rather than a search engine. In 2010 it took over powering Yahoo's search...
Free calls over the internet, video included
Skype was how families called abroad and how long-distance couples saw each other in 2010. It reported more than 500 million registered users, offered free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls, and...
One deal a day, and a $6 billion offer refused
Groupon emailed one local deal a day, half-price yoga classes or restaurant vouchers, that only activated if enough people bought in. It was called the fastest-growing company in web history in 2010,...
Questions answered by people who were there
Quora opened to the public in June 2010, founded by two former Facebook engineers. Its promise was answers from people with first-hand knowledge, and in 2010 Silicon Valley insiders answered...
The browser MMO played in the school library
RuneScape ran in a browser with Java, needed no download, and had millions of players in 2010. Its low-polygon world, skill grinding, Wilderness PvP and player-run economy made it the MMO for anyone...
Disney's virtual world for kids
Club Penguin was the safe, moderated virtual world where children waddled around as penguins, played mini-games and decorated igloos. Disney had bought it in 2007, and in 2010 it was one of the...
Pixel rooms and furni
Habbo Hotel, the Finnish virtual hotel of isometric pixel rooms, was where teenagers hung out and traded "furni" in 2010. Its Shockwave client, guest rooms and games were a cultural touchstone across...
Verified Supported Editorial Labels show how well each record is documented; open any result for its sources.
The social network at 500 million users
In 2010 Facebook was six years old, had just overtaken Google as the most-visited site in the United States on some weekly measures, and passed 500 million users in July. Its blue-and-white pages...
