2014 has been a big year for the online world. Social media has more new visitors than ever, business is constantly changing to keep up with the digital landscape, and Barbie has joined LinkedIn. Here are some of the most noteworthy social media and digital technology related events from this year, brought to you by Studio Culture.
We have picked our top 3 for each month, so leave us a comment below if we missed a moment that stood out to you!
January
- Facebook introduces trending topics for the first time
- Social media spending for business is predicted to rise
- WordPress and Tumblr continue to gain popularity over Blogger and Blogspot due to easy customisability
February
- Facebook turns 10 years old
- LinkedIn allows users to post blog posts
- Facebook buys popular messaging app Whatsapp for $21 billion
March
- Ellen tweets the most viral tweet of all time
- Buzzfeed is Facebook’s biggest performer, beating second place The Huffington Post by double the activity
- Twitter shuts down their music app (what music app?)
April
- WordPress rolls out free automatic security updates for all users
- Facebook reaches 1 billion mobile users per month
- #BringBackOurGirls trends on Twitter, spreading awareness of a previously unknown issue to the world
May
- The “Look Up” anti social media video goes viral, gains almost 50 million views
- Apple announces plan to buy Beats Electronics for $2.6 billion
- Google rolls out Panda 4.0, working to prevent sites with poor quality content from becoming top Google search results
June
- Facebook reveals it performed a secret “social experiment” by changing the newsfeed to influence moods
- Barbie joins LinkedIn
- President Obama holds a Q&A session on Tumblr
July
- Matt Cutts, head of Google Webspam, goes on leave and unplugs to spend time with his wife
- The World Cup dominates the years top Twitter trends with 6/10 relating to the Cup
- YouTube becomes the most visited social network ever, overtaking Facebook
August
- The Ice Bucket Challenge goes viral and raises over $15 million for ALS research in just 3 weeks
- #Ferguson and many related hashtags fuel debates over race and police brutality that last the rest of the year
- Former CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, leaves company after 34 years
September
- Apple unveils the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, and Apple Watch
- Larry Ellison steps down as Oracle CEO but will remain on board as chief technology officer
- The Oscar Pistorius trial becomes the biggest social media story in South Africa’s history
October
- Instagram rolls out ads and sponsored posts in Australia
- Facebook announces safety check feature for natural disasters – will prompt users to check in with friends and family when something happens in their location
- At the end of October, Ello the new ad-free social media site, has 1 million active users and 3 million on the waitlist
November
November- Snapchat allows users to send money to each other online – Snapcash
- The G20 arrives in Australia, causes many Twitter and Facebook memes
- Facebook adds donate button to newsfeed, gives money to charities helping to fight off the Ebola virus
December
- Instagram reaches more regular users than Twitter at 300 million a month
- Apple releases the best new apps of 2014 – including brain trainer Elevate and Instagram’s Hyperlapse
- Facebook’s most recent updates allows users to search for past posts using keywords
And there we have it, a monthly summary of some of the biggest and most interesting social, digital, and technological headlines from 2014. What has been your highlight of the year? On behalf of Studio Culture, we would like to wish you all a happy holiday season and a great 2015! See you soon!
