Today marks the seventh anniversary of the first tweet, when Jack Dorsey, creator of Twitter, launched the social network that was first referred to as Twttr. Dorsey, also the founder and CEO of Square, quickly realized vowels were necessary and Twitter was born.
The 140-character based platform took off in 2007 though when Twitter appeared at SXSW Interactive, placing large screens around the Austin Convention Center for passersby to see tweets as they streamed live. That was when the social network officially began to “blow up”, going from 20,000 tweets a day to 60,000 overnight. Nowadays, Twitter boasts an astounding 500 million users and serves up more than 340 million tweets a day.
Dorsey made an appearance on 60 Minutes this past weekend to discuss the rapid rise and widespread popularity of Twitter, but bizarrely found himself repeatedly questioned about raising startup capital for the company while having a nose ring and dreadlocks. According to the reporter in the video, Dorsey “overcame” having a the nose ring and dreads, so he should feel it’s more of an accomplishment. The reporter also goes on to discuss how gross dreads are even though Dorsey explains that it’s a type of drying soap that gave him his dreads. See the bizarre, sidetracking clip for yourself.
The social network has even garnered the attention from the Vatican, when the holy city chose to delete all of the previous Pope’s tweets upon arrival of Pope Francis.
Since its inception, Twitter has gone on to see revolutions use it to find a voice, President Obama’s “Four more years” tweet become the most retweeted comment with over 800,000 retweets, tweets fly in from space, and the creation of Vine. So, while the character count may be short, the social network’s impact is large.
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