What was going on with the Internet in 2002
In 2002 one of the original social media platforms was founded although it wasn't officially launched until March 2003.
Friendster was founded by Canadian computer programmer Jonathan Abrams in 2002, before MySpace (2003), Hi5 (2004), Facebook (2004) and other social networking sites. When Friendster.com went live in early 2003 it was adopted by 3 million users within the first few months.
Friendster was considered the top online social network service until around April 2004 when it was overtaken by MySpace. In August 2003, several eUniverse employees with Friendster accounts saw potential in its social networking features. The group decided to mimic the more popular features of the website and within 10 days, the first version of MySpace was ready for launch. Friendster pretty much died in 2006. It transformed itself into a social gaming platform that was popular in Asia. Nonetheless, on June 14, 2015 the site and all its services shut down indefinitely. However, in 2023, the site rose from the ashes to mimic its first incarnation — "Rediscover the enchantment of the early social network era.".
In 2002, there were 38,760,373 websites* with their own designated URL.
* www.internetlivestats.com