Twitter launch day: A social media giant is born

Founded in 2006, Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that allows users to post text-based status updates and messages of up to 280 characters in length. These messages are known as tweets. As of the fourth quarter of 2020, Twitter had 192 million monetizable daily active users (mDAU) worldwide.

Prior to April 2020, services were accessible via SMS. Tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters, but the limit was doubled to 280 for non-CJK languages in November 2017. Audio and video tweets remain limited to 140 seconds for most accounts.

How and when was Twitter invented:

Twitter came about out as a result of both a perceived need and timing. Smartphones were relatively new when Twitter was first conceived of by inventor Jack Dorsey, who wanted to use his cellphone to send text messages to a service and have the message distributed to all his friends.

The idea for Twitter came from the podcasting venture Odeo, which had been formed by Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Noah Glass. After Apple announced in 2005 that it was adding podcasts to its iTunes applications, the management at Odeo realised that they needed to give their company a new direction to compete with Apple.

In October 2006, Dorsey, Williams and Stone bought out Odeo and started Obvious Corp. to further develop the platform. In 2007, Twitter, Inc. was created as a corporate entity and Dorsey became its first CEO.

The First Tweet:

The first tweet occurred on March 21, 2006, at 9:50 PM Pacific Standard Time when Jack Dorsey tweeted "just setting up my twttr". On 15 July the same year, the completed product (Twitter) was launched.

Elon Musk acquisition:

On April 25, 2022, the Twitter board of directors agreed to a $44 billion buyout by Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, potentially making it one of the biggest deals to turn a company private. Musk said on July 8, 2022, that he was terminating the deal, claiming that the social media company had failed to provide information about fake accounts on the platform.

Most followed accounts on Twitter:

Barack Obama-- @BarackObama-- 131.4M

Justin Bieber-- @justinbieber-- 114.4M

Katy Perry-- @katyperry-- 108.9M

Rihanna-- @rihanna-- 106.2M

Cristiano Ronaldo-- @Cristiano-- 99.4M

Elon Musk-- @elonmusk-- 96M

Taylor Swift-- @taylorswift13-- 90.3M

Lady Gaga-- @ladygaga-- 84.5M

Narendra Modi-- @narendramodi-- 78.2M

Ellen DeGeneres-- @TheEllenShow-- 77.7M

(with sources inputs)

Published on: Thursday, July 14, 2022, 06:35 PM IST