HISTORY OF TWITTER
“I don’t get it”
…is the phrase I frequently hear when I talk to people about Twitter. This micro-blogging service is one of the more unique and most difficult to explain of the social technologies — a “presence” tool that broadcasts “what are you doing” to friends and strangers alike, anyone who “follows” you, in 140 characters or less.
I won’t explain it now — though I’ve written about it elsewhere — except to provide this metaphor:
- If Facebook is like communicating at a bar-b-que
- Twitter is like communicating at a bar
Rather than explain Twitter, let’s look at the history and statistics of this Web 2.0 social tool…
On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey or as he’s known by his Twitter handle @jack sent his first Tweet.
Now, the statistics look something line this, according to the Twitter blog:
Number of Tweets:
- 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.
- 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.
- 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.
- 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.
- 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
- 456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).
- 6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year
Number of Twitter accounts:
- 572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.
- 460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.
- 182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.
Number of Twitter employees:
- 8… 29… 130… 350… 400: Number of Twitter employees in Jan 2008, Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011 and today.
Here is an interesting infographic, showing a demographic cross section of Twitter users.
Follow me at my Twitter feed: twitter.com/billpetro
Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com
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