As the world turns, technology continues to advance, and humans are taking advantage. One of the major features that has been created is social media. It has plenty of unique concepts that make it fun and interactive for all ages. People have created different apps that serve a number of purposes. Apps that are defined as social media  have come to the surface as the most popular and stand out. Three apps that are extremely popular are Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. According to estimates from multiple sources, over 1.96 billion people around the world have some kind of social media account. That number may grow to over 2.5 billion by 2018.

Founded on March, 26, 2006, Twitter continues to grow its number of users. According to www.statista.com, Twitter has over 319 million active monthly users. Included in this statistic is the underlying social media message that 32% of all internet users have a Twitter account. Evan Williams is one of the men credited with finding the much admired site. He is the former CEO; however, he has been able to make Twitter a success.

The ability to tweet from not only a computer at home, but a mobile device from anywhere is a gigantic change to the world. It has progressed in a positive way from its first version of the app. One of the basic concepts that helps Twitter create a large number of users is the ability to express what is on  a user’s mind to anybody at anytime. Whether it be through political arguments, or just tweeting casually to a friend, people as a society are now connected. Twitter can encourage growth, learning, and positivity all in one. Most social media sites cannot do that in a way like Twitter can. If a person wants to look back on previous tweets in history, it is easy to do so. Learning in today’s world can come through social media; it does not always have to be inside a classroom.

       The next app that is influencing the social media market is “Instagram”. Unlike Twitter, Instagram offers something other than just status updates. It revolves around the sharing of pictures. It has the attention of almost double the users that Twitter has. The picture feature enables other functions to happen smoothly. Some aspiring artists live through Instagram by sharing their ideas with the world. It is a follower based system. That is worth noting because the more followers, the more users can share his/her inspiration with.

    When Instagram was launched in 2010, most thought that it would fail considering it was only centered around pictures. However, it has exceeded expectations exponentially. Around 60 million photos are shared on the social media app daily. That is by far the most pictures shared on any application in the app store.  Another thing that sets it apart is the capability of letting people from around the world discover talent through hashtags. Captions and hashtags help make posted pictures ownable. Making a profile and bio is another concept that Instagram has taken and made its own. Most likely the idea came from Twitter, but the owners decided to let the pictures speak for themselves when describing the profile.

The last application that connects people to each other is Snapchat. Originally named Peek A-Boo by co-founders, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, Snapchat has caught the attention of people worldwide through its use of disappearing images. At a max of ten seconds, pictures that users send vanish into the web never to be seen again, unless of course, the user takes a screenshot, which is a new feature. Around 8,000 photos are shared every second of the day through Snapchat. Spiegel, never dreamed that a college kid like him could make an app so successful.

Snapchat is constantly implementing new ideas into its platform. It has become an educational tool, in addition to just plain entertainment. The introduction of discovery has enhanced what users have been able to do through the program. Different TV networks have cooperated with Snapchat to get their message to viewers.

Snapchat also uses geolocation to brand businesses. Businesses pay Snapchat for advertising to users and other people who come across the app. This promising and relatively new feature has showed marginal prosperity in the recent months. Snapchat hopes to continue on the business side of things, as it looks to make its social media company one of the more prominent ones in the world. However, revenue of the company affirms that is already there. Snapchat’s net worth is ten billion dollars.

Social media has taken the entire world by storm in the last ten years. Three prosperous apps are at the top of the ladder when people think of social media. Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat have all made strides to get past the competition through business marketing ideas and other implications. All three applications have a net worth above two billion dollars according to www.pewresearch.org. That number proves that social media continually grows and shapes into new forms each time one of these apps update. The only thing left to find out is how significant can social media be within these applications.