The History of Twitter

History Lesson: The Story (so far) of MANOLITH Twitter .com 600series.net/infoshot Twitpocalypse! June 12 2009: the number of tweets exceeds 2,147,483,647 - the limits of signed integers - causing multiple twitter apps to crash. Twitter itself continues to grow. CELEBRITIES ON TWITTER April 2009: @aplusk beats @cnnbrk to 1 million followers January 2009: @britneyspears is hacked CITIZEN JOURNALISM Twitter turns 3 thudson November 2008: @the_real shaq displaces Ward Andrews pseudo-Shaq tweets @britneyspears HI Yall! Brit Brit here, just wanted t e you all on the size of my vagina. It's about 4 feet wide 7:06 PM Jan 5th, 2009 rp teeth. Ojkrums http://twitpic.com/135xa - There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy. 12:36 pm, Jan 15, 2009 @the real shaq This is the real SHAQUILLE O'NEAL 5:19 am, Nov 18, 2008 Twitter turns 2 @mtvmoonman Watching Britney rehearse. Looking sexy in jeans and a white tank. Hot! 7:06 PM Sep 7th, 2007 @barackobama Thinking we're only one signature away from ending the war in Iraq |3:10 pm, April 29, 2007 MEDIA ON TWITTER September 2007: @mtvmoonman tweets the latest updates from VMAS. Membership booms, POLITICIANS ON TWITTER October 2008: @biz sets up Twitter account for the @johnmccain campaign "so both candidates would be represented fairly" April 2007: @barackobama joins Twitter Twitter turns 1 March 2007: @johnedwards is among the first politicians to start Twittering March 2007: Twitter wins blog award at SXSW Interactive, spawning the first wave of media interest September, 2006: James Cox creates @cnnbrk, using 5 lines of Ruby code to send CNN news alerts to his phone. July 13, 2006: twttr.com goes live @jack just setting up my twitter 2:50 pm, March 21, 2006 @dom oh, this is going to be addictive 3:10 pm, March 21, 2006 Planting the Seed March 31, 2006: Twttr Beta is launched on @jack's birthday While working for Odeo, a subsidiary of Obvious Corp, Jack Dorsey (@jack), Biz Stone (@biz) and Evan Williams (@ev) developed the initial code for Twitter in a matter of weeks. Here's how the concept came together. 2006: @Biz discovers the "fail whale" image by Yiying Lu on iStockPhoto 2006: @Jack pitches idea for SMS-based status updates to Odeo 2005: Biz joins Odeo 2005: Jack joins Odeo | 2004: Biz and Ev leave Google. Ev co-founds Odeo 2003: Google acquires Pyra Labs and Blogger 2003: Google recruits Biz to join the Blogger team 2000: Jack Dorsey writes software for taxi dispatching, allowing real- time networked status updates 1999: Biz Stone helps launch and grow Xanga.com August 1999: Evan Williams co-founds Pyra Labs and launches Blogger.com 1999: Birth of the term "blog"E 1999: LiveJournal launches, and allows the creation of virtual communities. Focus is on conversation among groups of linked "friends" 1997: Birth of the term "weblog" 1995-96: Instant messaging as we know it (PowWow, ICQ, AIM) launches, and popularizes the "buddy list" December 1992: the first SMS message is sent via the Vodaphone network: "Merry Christmas" 1985: SMS messaging technology is developed for GSM phones 1980s: UNIX "Talk" allows networked users to exchange real-time text updates