Twittering, Tweeting (or Tw*ttering if you’re one of the guys at work) – whatever you call it, I use it almost every day but had no idea how it all began and the sites original intentions.
This great video by Common Craft explains what the main purpose Twitter was:
But here are some things I never knew about Twitter:
- Originally Twitter was seen as a Microblog rather than a social media site. Is this still the case now?
- Started to enable users to share 140 characters of moments – from the momentous to the mundane.
- Main focus was to make people feel more connected.
- Developers never expected its other uses such as real time updates would be discovered by users
- Also never expected it to be used for live news, updates, marketing or business use (how many of you heard the phrase “the news doesn’t break it Tweets?”)
- The initial users had a huge influence in the development of Twitter, particularly using the ‘@’ syntax to communicate directly with other users.
- Never expected the search function to work as it does now, this was something established by an external company Twitter since bought and has now integrated the functionality using hashtags.
- Now used by millions of businesses as well as celebs, politicians and individuals for helpful communications and instant feedback.
- It’s still evolving.
To find out more from the co-founder Evan Williams click here.
This Week's Been About... 