For those in a hurry:
- The first tweet ever was sent by Jack Dorsey on March 21, 2006. It said “just setting up my twttr”.
- Twitter was born out of a hackathon at Odeo, a podcasting company that was struggling to survive.
- Twitter was originally called Twttr and used SMS to send messages to a group of friends.
- Twitter became a public service in July 2006 and soon attracted millions of users who shared their thoughts, news, jokes, and more.
The first tweet: How it all started
Twitter is one of the most popular and influential social media platforms in the world. But how did it begin? Who sent the first tweet ever? And what did it say?
The first tweet ever was sent by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter, on March 21, 2006. It said “just setting up my twttr”. It was a simple and unremarkable message, but it marked the start of a new era of communication.
Dorsey had the idea for a service that would let people share their status updates with a group of friends via SMS. He pitched it to his colleagues at Odeo, a podcasting company that was facing tough competition from Apple’s iTunes. Odeo encouraged its employees to brainstorm new ideas during organized “hackathons”. Dorsey teamed up with Biz Stone and Evan Williams, two other Odeo executives, to work on his project.
They called it Twttr, inspired by the sound of birds chirping. They used a phone number to send and receive messages, which were limited to 140 characters. They invited their co-workers to join the service and test it out. Dorsey sent the first tweet ever from his account (No. 12) on March 21, 2006.
How it grew
Twttr soon became a popular inter-office messaging platform at Odeo. According to Business Insider, “employees obsessed with Twttr were racking up monthly SMS bills totaling hundreds of dollars.” They decided to make it a public service and launched it on July 15, 2006. TechCrunch wrote about it and described it as “a simple but viral idea”.
People started using Twttr to send messages like “Cleaning my apartment” and “Hungry”. They also used it to share news, opinions, jokes, and more. The service gained traction and attracted celebrities, politicians, journalists, activists, and ordinary users who wanted to connect with each other and the world.
Twttr changed its name to Twitter in October 2006 and added vowels to its logo. It also introduced features like hashtags, mentions, retweets, and direct messages. It expanded its character limit to 280 in 2017. It now has over 300 million active users who send about 500 million tweets per day.
Twitter has also played a significant role in shaping history and culture. It has been credited with accelerating revolutions, spawning new forms of literature, acting as a real-time water cooler for shared experiences, and generally acting as humanity’s de facto discovery and early warning system for everything.
How it changed
Twitter is not the same as it was when Dorsey sent the first tweet ever. It has evolved and adapted to the changing needs and expectations of its users and society. It has also faced challenges and controversies over issues like privacy, security, censorship, harassment, misinformation, and more.
Twitter has tried to address these issues by introducing new policies, tools, and features. For example, it has added labels and warnings to tweets that contain false or misleading information or incite violence. It has also banned some accounts that violate its rules or terms of service.
Twitter has also experimented with new ways to enhance its service and attract more users. For example, it has launched Spaces, a feature that lets users host live audio conversations. It has also acquired Revue, a newsletter platform that lets users create and monetize email newsletters.
Twitter is constantly changing and evolving. But it all started with a simple tweet that said “just setting up my twttr”.
