In a fast-paced world like what we have today, recording events is often forgotten. This is especially true in the digital era, wherein we assume that every piece of information will remain available indefinitely, and archived somewhere. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. Sites, portals, databases, even software repositories, all come and go. If no one kept a copy, the information is gone forever.

It proved this when I started this project. There were countless information which are now gone forever, and in an age where words of individuals no longer hold any weight—unless they are a personality—a source is often expected, if not demanded.

My desire to change that resulted in the creation of The Federated SNS Timeline. A list of the Federated Social Network history, gathered on this page, with links to sources scattered everywhere.

UPDATE 2024-09-05: The most up-to-date version is located at the DDFON, Open Social Web, Fediverse, Mycelial Web SNS Historical Timeline repository.

The Fediverse Historical Timeline

The Federated SNS (social network service/system) timeline is a simple list of its history. To put it another way, it is a record of how the Fediverse came to be. This is only one part of the larger Federated Social Web. For this list, we defined SNS as services meant for posting updates (microblogging, macro-blogging, blogging), uploading images, leaving comments, re-sharing, and liking; or simply, the Fediverse.

Protocols and services like XMPP and Matrix are part of the Federated Chat grouping. While there is an overlap with the XMPP protocol when it comes to SNS, these platforms/software were not (yet) included (e.g. Juick, Movim, Buddycloud, Jappix, and OneSocialWeb).

Focus

The focus of this list is on information with sources. If the original sources are no longer available, there should be an archive via archive.org or archive.ph.

For example. There is some information I remember about the Federated Social Web. However, since this information is no longer available (sites went offline and there are no archives elsewhere), I did not include these in the timeline.

There are also no personal opinions on this list, and no endorsements. This list is a plain record of dates with a link to sources.

License

Creative Commons-Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 4.0 International License

• Feel free to translate this work. Please share the link of your translation in the comments.
• Feel free to build upon this work. Share the link to your derivates in the comments!

As long as the conditions of CC-BY-SA 4.0 International License are met.

UPDATE 2024-09-05: The most up-to-date version is located at the DDFON, Open Social Web, Fediverse, Mycelial Web SNS Historical Timeline repository.

Without further ado, here is the timeline for the Federated SNS. Enjoy!

Timeline

2008

• 2008-05-18

  • First post in the Fediverse was made by Evan Prodromou: “This is my first post.” ^{1 2}

• 2008-07-02

  • Protocol: OpenMicroBlogging ^{3 4}

  • Software: Laconica was released by Evan Prodromou ^{5 6 7}

    • Protocol (first release): OpenMicroBlogging

  • Instance: Identi.ca ^{5 6 7}

    • Software: Laconica

• 2008 sometime

  • Instance: The TWiT Army Canteen

    • Software: Laconica

  • Software: OpenMicroBlogger was released ⁸

    • Protocol (first release): OpenMicroBlogging

  • Instance: OpenMicroBlogger.com

    • Software: OpenMicroBlogger

2009

• 2009-08-28
  • Laconica software was renamed to StatusNet ⁹

2010

• 2010-02-22

  • Instance: Mozilla was launched ¹⁰
    • Software: StatusNet

• 2010-03-04

  • OStatus protocol replaced the OpenMicroBlogging protocol ^{11 12 4}
  • StatusNet 0.9.0 switched to OStatus protocol ¹³

• 2010-03-09

  • StatusNet Cloud Service was released in beta. The first managed instance service. ¹⁴

• 2010-03-14

  • “identiverse” first coined by Luke Slater ^{15 16}

• 2010-07-02

  • Protocol: DFRN (Distributed Friends and Relations Network) ^{17 18}

  • Software: Mistpark was released by Mike Macgirvin ^{17 18}

    • Protocol (first release): DFRN

• 2010-08-17

  • Mistpark added DFRN protocol federation ^{17 19}

• 2010-09-09

  • Mistpark added OpenMicroBlogging protocol federation ^{17 20}

• 2010-10-13

  • Mistpark added OStatus protocol federation ^{21 22}

• 2010-11-03

  • Mistpark was renamed to Friendika ²³

• 2010-11-23

  • Protocol: Diaspora Federation

    • Network name: The Federation

  • Software: diaspora* was released by Dan Grippi, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, Raphael Sofaer, and Maxwell Salzberg ²⁴

    • Protocol (first release): Diaspora Federation

  • Instance: joindiaspora.com

    • Software: diaspora*

2011

• 2011-03-19

  • Friendika added Diaspora Federation protocol support ^{25 26 22}

• 2011-05-01

  • Mozilla instance was renamed to Social@Mozilla ¹⁰

• 2011-11-12

  • Friendika was renamed to Friendica ²⁷

2012

• 2012-05-25

  • “fediverse” was first coined by Mark Eckenwiler ^{28 29}

• 2012-07

  • Protocol: Zot ¹⁷

    • First decentralised and identity-aware (Nomadic identity) protocol ¹⁷

  • Software: red | Redmatrix was released by Mike Macgirvin ¹⁷

    • Protocol (first release): Zot, Diaspora Federation ²²

• 2012-08-27

  • diaspora* becomes a community-managed project ³⁰

• 2012-10-04

  • Protocol: ActivityPump ^{31 4}

  • Software: pump.io was released by Evan Prodromou ³²

    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPump

2013

• 2013-01-24

  • “fediverse” second (archived) usage by Marjolein Katsma ^{33 29}
    • no other archived copies found before 2013-01-24 other than 2012-05-25 (see above)

• 2013-06-08

  • StatusNet and Free Social were merged with GNU Social ^{34 22 4}
    • GNU Social is the surviving software name.

• 2013-07-12

  • Identi.ca switched from StatusNet to pump.io software. ^{6 4}

• 2013-11-20

  • Social@Mozilla instance was shutdown ¹⁰

2014

• 2014-09-06
  • W3C work on ActivityPub started ³⁵
    • Based on the ActivityPump protocol.

2015

• 2015 early
  • Redmatrix was renamed Hubzilla ¹⁷
    • Protocol (first release): Zot, Diaspora Federation

2016

• 2016-03-16

  • Software: Mastodon was released by Eugen Rochko ³⁶
    • Protocol (first release): OStatus ²²

• 2016-08-16

  • Diaspora Federation protocol becomes available as a Ruby library ^{30 37}

• 2016-10-26

  • Software: Pleroma was released by Lain ^{38 39}
    • Protocol (first release): OStatus

2017

• 2017-07-18

  • Hubzilla added ActivityPub protocol federation ^{40 41}

• 2017-07-27

  • Software: Socialhome was released by Jason Robinson ⁴²
    • Protocol (first release): Diaspora Federation ²²

• 2017-09-03

  • Mastodon added ActivityPub protocol federation ^{43 22}

2018

• 2018-01-23

  • ActivityPub became an official W3C Recommendation (web standard) ⁴⁴

• 2018-03-20

  • Software: PeerTube was released by Chocobozzz ⁴⁵
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2018-04-19

  • Software: Misskey was released by Syuilo ⁴⁶
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2018-08-17

  • Protocol: Zot6 ^{47 48}

  • Software: Zap was released by Mike Macgirvin ^{47 48}

    • Protocol (first release): Zot6

• 2018-08-23

  • Software: Osada was released by Mike Macgirvin ^{49 50}
    • Protocol (first release): Zot6, ActivityPub

• 2018-11-03

  • Software: PixelFed was released by Daniel Supernault ⁵¹
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2018-11-10

  • Software: WriteFreely was released by Matt Baer ⁵²
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2018-11-18

  • Friendica added ActivityPub protocol federation ^{53 22}

2019

• 2019-02-20

  • Hubzilla upgraded Zot to Zot6 protocol ⁵⁴

• 2019-05-06

  • Software: Lemmy was released ⁵⁵
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2019-08-20

  • Software: Hometown was released by Darius Kazemi ⁵⁶
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2019-09-22

  • Osada was discontinued ⁵⁷

• 2019-09-22

  • Zap added ActivityPub protocol federation ⁵⁸

• 2019-10-04

  • Mastodon dropped OStatus protocol federation ⁵⁹

• 2019-10-06

  • Socialhome added ActivityPub protocol federation ⁶⁰

2020

• 2020-03-08

  • Pleroma dropped OStatus protocol federation ⁶¹

• 2020-12-31

  • Software: BookWyrm was released by Mouse Reeve ⁶²
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

2021

• 2021-05-11

  • Software: Rebased was released by Alex Gleason ⁶³
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2021-07-18

  • GNU Social added ActivityPub protocol federation ⁶⁴

• 2021-11-07

  • Software: Guppe Groups was released Will Murphy ⁶⁵
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

2022

• 2022-01-29

  • Software: Akkoma was released by floatingghost ⁶⁶
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2022-07-19

  • Software: Firefish (f. Calckey) was released by Kainoa Kanter ⁶⁷
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2022-08-05

  • Software: Foundkey was released by Norm ⁶⁸
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2022-10-30

  • Software: Kbin initial release by Ernest Wiśniewski ^{69 70}
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2022-11-13

  • Instance: Vivaldi Social was launched ⁷¹
    • Software: Mastodon

• 2022-11-21

  • Software: AP Groups was released by Michael Puckett ⁷²
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2022-11-24

  • Software: Takahē was released Andrew Godwin ⁷³
    • Protocol (first release): ActivityPub

• 2022-12-03

  • Software: Streams was released by Mike Macgirvin ⁷⁴
    • Protocol (first release): Nomad Communications, ActivityPub ⁷⁵

2023

• 2023-05-04
  • Instance: Mozilla.social entered private beta ^{76 77}
    • Software: Mastodon

On updates

This is a living project. I will update it depending on the new information and my available time. If you have information available, kindly provide the relevant links for verification. If I can verify (rel=me; keyoxide; GPG; and other ways to verify your identity) that you are the developer of a protocol, standard, platform/software, a link is no longer needed (though still preferable).

Corrections would have to be clarified. Like, how is the correction more accurate than the currently sourced information? Or, how can we reconcile the correction with the currently sourced information? Of course, if you are the developer, and I can verify your identity, your information holds more weight (e.g. you prefer your software’s release date to be later than the current information).

Submit your information in the issues section.

UPDATE 2024-09-05: The most up-to-date version is located at the DDFON, Open Social Web, Fediverse, Mycelial Web SNS Historical Timeline repository.