Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read short 140-character text messages, called "tweets". Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS, or mobile device app.[10] Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco and has offices in New York City, Boston, San Antonio and Detroit.[11]
Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass and by July 2006, the site was launched. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with 500 million registered users in 2012, who posted 340 million tweets per day. The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day.[12][13][14] In 2013 Twitter was one of the ten most-visited websites, and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet."[7][15]
Twitter, Inc. Twitter's homepage in February 2014 Type Public Traded as NYSE: TWTR Founded March 21, 2006[1] Headquarters San Francisco, California,United States[2] Area served Worldwide Founder(s) Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass,
Evan Williams, Biz Stone Key people Jack Dorsey (Chairman)
Dick Costolo (CEO) Industry Internet Revenue US$ 664 million (2013)[3] Employees 3,000 (2014)[4] Subsidiaries Vine Website twitter.com Written in JavaScript,[5] Ruby,[5] Scala,[5]Java[5][6] Alexa rank 11 (April 2014)[7] Type of site Social network service,microblogging Registration Required to post, follow, or be followed Users 200 million (active February 2013)[8] Available in Multilingual Launched July 15, 2006[9] Current status Active
History Further information: Timeline of Twitter Creation and initial reaction A blueprint sketch, c. 2006, by Jack Dorsey, envisioning an SMS-based social network.
Twitter's origins lie in a "daylong brainstorming session" held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo. Dorsey, then an undergraduate student at New York University, introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group.[16][17] The originalproject code name for the service was twttr, an idea that Williams later ascribed to Noah Glass,[18] inspired by Flickr and the five-character length of American SMS short codes. The developers initially considered "10958" as a short code, but later changed it to "40404" for "ease of use and memorability."[19] Work on the project started on March 21, 2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9:50 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST): "just setting up my twttr".[1] Dorsey has explained the origin of the "Twitter" title:
...we came across the word 'twitter', and it was just perfect. The definition was 'a short burst of inconsequential information,' and 'chirps from birds'. And that's exactly what the product was.[20]
The first Twitter prototype, developed by Dorsey and contractor Florian Weber, was used as an internal service for Odeo employees[21] and the full version was introduced publicly on July 15, 2006.[9]
In October 2006, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Dorsey, and other members of Odeo, formed Obvious Corporation and acquired Odeo, together with its assets—including Odeo.com and Twitter.com—from the investors and shareholders.[22] Williams fired Glass, who was silent about his part in Twitter's startup until 2011.[23] Twitter spun off into its own company in April 2007.[24] Williams provided insight into the ambiguity that defined this early period in a 2013 interview:
With Twitter, it wasn't clear what it was. They called it a social network, they called it microblogging, but it was hard to define, because it didn't replace anything. There was this path of discovery with something like that, where over time you figure out what it is. Twitter actually changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status updates and a social utility. It is that, in part, but the insight we eventually came to was Twitter was really more of an information network than it is a social network.[25]
The tipping point for Twitter's popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000.[26] "The Twitter people cleverly placed two 60-inch plasma screens in the conference hallways, exclusively streaming Twitter messages," remarked Newsweek's Steven Levy. "Hundreds of conference-goers kept tabs on each other via constant twitters. Panelists and speakers mentioned the service, and the bloggers in attendance touted it."[27]
Reaction at the conference was highly positive. Blogger Scott Beale said that Twitter "absolutely rul[ed]" SXSWi. Social software researcher danah boyd said Twitter "own[ed]" the conference.[28] Twitter staff received the festival's Web Award prize with the remark "we'd like to thank you in 140 characters or less. And we just did!" [29]
The first unassisted off-Earth Twitter message was posted from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut T. J. Creamer on January 22, 2010.[30] By late November 2010, an average of a dozen updates per day were posted on the astronauts' communal account, @NASA_Astronauts. NASA has also hosted over 25 "tweetups", events that provide guests with VIP access to NASA facilities and speakers with the goal of leveraging participants' social networks to further the outreach goals of NASA.
In August 2010, the company appointed Adam Bain from News Corp.'s Fox Audience Network as president of revenue.[31]
