The applications and online services evolve just like living beings. They adapt to the terrain. They survive by changing and enhancing what makes them better, copying characteristics of the competition. WhatsApp , one of the most downloaded mobile apps in the world, was born as a way to tell your friends what you were doing. Today is an application to send and receive text and audio messages, make calls and video calls, exchange files and much more. The case of Twitter is similar.
At present it has become a public square in which there are ideological positions of all colors. Hence its bad reputation and the lack of tact among some of its users when they debate with others on controversial issues. But originally, Twitter was supposed to be an improved version of LiveJournal . The initial idea was to create a personal diary in real time in which anyone can share what they were doing or thinking about in a text message the size of an SMS, so popular at the time.
Over time, Twitter has incorporated audio, video, images, and GIF animations. You have tried to emulate features of your rivals, such as Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat . But its simple textual origin maintains it as the favorite place for politicians, actors and celebrities in general to communicate with their fans, followers and the whole world without going through the media filter . Let's see how it all started.
Hello world
In programming, the expression “Hello, world” is often used, “Hello World” in English, to start in any language. It is the simplest program. Precisely, this expression reflects very well what Twitter is. A loudspeaker to greet the world. Not for nothing, among the Trending Topics expressions such as “Good morning” or “Happy Friday” tend to abound.
This is relevant because the first message that was published on Twitter, in March 2006, was a simple “Just setting up my twttr”, which in Spanish we translate as “Simply setting up my twttr”. It has recently become popular for being sold in NFT form for almost $ 3 million. As a curiosity, that first message was automatic. The first one you sent when you created an account.
Jack Dorsey , the visible face of Twitter, had in mind a version of LiveJournal that was simpler and allowed to publish in real time. A digital diary with concise messages. Something much shorter than Blogger or than Medium . On the way between the social network and instant messaging, the idea was not far from the origin of WhatsApp , devised years later. Interpersonal communication was not the central axis. Rather, it was about telling the world what you were doing.
That it was done through SMS-like text messages was the idea of both Jack Dorsey himself and Biz Stone . In fact, according to the sources, both Biz Stone and Evan Williams had devised an internal tool for their company with which to speak through written messages. Other names also appear at the origin of the original Twitter, such as Noah Glass or Evan Henshaw-Plath . But let's go by parts.
The talents end up meeting
Jack Dorsey is currently the CEO of Twitter since he was appointed as such in October 2015. Interestingly, he already held this position between 2006 and 2008. In his first two years of life. So he left office, created Square , an online payments company, and returned to Twitter in 2011 as CEO. And from there back to CEO.
The history of Twitter as such begins before 2006. Dorsey attended the Missouri University of Science and Technology and then transferred to New York University . However, he did not finish his studies. Instead, in 2000 he created a predecessor to Twitter that informed your contacts of what you were doing via BlackBerry and email messages. A kind of simpler LiveJournal that allowed to report in real time. The idea did not work. But after moving to Oakland, California, he started working at Odeo , a podcasting company. And things changed.
Odeo, the podcasting platform created in 2005 by Evan Williams and Noah Glass There his app idea of SMS-style short messages was well received, to the point that it was implemented as internal communication tool . Other names that will later become an important part of Twitter, such as Evan Williams or Noah Glass, also participated in that project. Precisely from them comes the name of twttr , similar to Flickr , very popular at that time. Dorsey had initially christened it Status .
Dorsey himself and Florian Weber created the first version of Twitter for the internal communication of Odeo . In July 2006 it was made public to the world and by the end of that year, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey and other Odeo employees created their own company, Obvious Corporation . With it they bought Odeo, created in 2005 by the same Evan Williams and Noah Glass. Thus they became owners of Twitter without depending on investors. Finally, in April 2007, Twitter became independent as an independent startup.
Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey, founders of Twitter The main reason to become independent? His enormous success at the SXSW (South by Southwest Interactive) conference in March of that year. From 20,000 daily tweets they go to 60,000. Three more times. And in large part it was due to the advertising idea they had on Twitter: to place gigantic plasma screens where anyone could see the latest messages published on this social network. Mouth-ear did the rest. And with fame came the first millionaire investments and a revaluation of Twitter around 20 million dollars.
The first years from Twitter as such
The year 2007, in which Twitter was born as an independent company and as a growing social network, will lay the foundations of what we know today. For example, at the end of summer the hashtag is introduced, an idea attributed to Chris Messina .
The hashtag was a way of highlighting topics as HTML tags but using the # (pound) symbol inherited from the IRC chat network. Messina used it for the first time but actually it was not an official function . Twitter took time to implement as such. Meanwhile, users were using it on their own. The same will happen with retweets, replies or official applications. As users asked for functions or “created” them on their own, Twitter was gradually adopting them .
Twitter in 2007. Source: Web Design Museum In the summer of 2008, Twitter will receive a second round of investment with such well-known names as Jeff Bezos . By then, this social network already publishes 100 million messages per quarter. And that year ends with Jack Dorsey leaving Twitter. As we have seen, he will return to his company in 2011. Upon his return, 140 million messages are published on Twitter a day and he establishes himself as a social network for major events such as the 2010 Soccer World Cup or the 2010 NBA Finals.
And finally, some curiosities about Twitter. Your pet, the blue or white bird on a blue background that characterizes this social network. His official name is Larry T Bird , in honor of the legendary Boston Celtics player, Larry Bird . The name was given by Biz Stone, one of the founders of Twitter.
As for the name. As we saw, Jack Dorsey came up with Status, but the rest of the team saw that a more attractive name like Twitter would be more appropriate. Jack himself explains it in 2011 with a message. Who coined the name was Noah Glass, who liked the definition given by the Oxford dictionary: “a short inconsequential burst of information, chirps from birds”, which we could translate as “a brief burst of inconsequential information , chirps of birds ”. As the Twitter.com domain was busy , they shortened it to twttr, but soon returned to the original name, as soon as they could get hold of the official domain.
More curiosities. For years, as Twitter error screen we saw a whale carried by birds. She ended up calling her FailWhale and her manager is the artist Yiying Li . The original drawing was intended for a digital birthday card. And Twitter bought it from a stock image website.
