Before Facebook Inc. became the most widely used social networking site, there were others. These services connected people to old friends, and served as a platform for meeting new friends.

Though these forgotten social networks served their purpose, users eventually migrated to newer platforms that offered exclusivity and shiny new features.

Some of the following once-popular social networking sites eventually made a comeback after reinventing themselves, while others didn’t survive at all.

MySpace

MySpace announced in 2011 that it was reinventing itself into a cloud music streaming service under the leadership of creative director Justin Timberlake and Al Dejewski. Though many thought it was the end of the platform, it seems music was its saving grace. Timberlake leveraged his connections with artists who, in turn, leveraged their fanbase to make the service thrive.

And now the social media site is more than thriving. New reports state that traffic to MySpace is up 575 percent, hitting 50.6 million unique viewers in November 2014. Curiously, traffic surge occurs once a week, usually on Thursday. The service stated that it may be due to the “Throwback Thursday” ritual.

Friendster

Though not as popular as Facebook in the U.S., Friendster was once heralded as the top social networking site — before others arrived. It went live in 2002 and garnered 3 million users in a matter of months. But it was quick to face competition from other social networking services; thus, its user base declined over the years.

The platform underwent some changes — from a payments service in partnership with MOL AccessPortal Berhad to finally settling in as a social gaming network in 2011. As a social gaming platform, Friendster’s monthly active users quickly grew by 50 percent. A majority of its users are now from Asia.

Hi5

Hi5 was launched in 2003 as a social networking site and was heralded as one of the top three social sites in 2008. Due to the popularity of Facebook, hi5 was pushed to reinvent itself as a social gaming site by 2009. In 2010, it acquired social gaming company Big Six, and in 2011 the company was acquired by if(we), then called Tagged.

With the acquisition, the games changed from offering third-party developed games to offering games from the Tagged developers. According to Alexa, most of hi5’s visitors come from India and are males who attended graduate school. Also, the platform is mostly accessed from home, and users spend an average of 15 minutes on the service.

Multiply

Multiply is a social networking site that tried to be everything at once, from a blogging platform to a photo-sharing one, as well as a social hub. It evolved into an e-commerce site in 2012 and eventually killed off the social-side of the service to focus more on the e-commerce aspect.

Unfortunately, that strategy did not work, as a few months after announcing the death of its social service, the site announced the death of the entire service.

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