Twitter

What’s the best course of action if you have everything planned out but the concept was introduced to the market from a stronger platform?

Brainstorm!

In 2005, Jack Dorsey was a programmer for the podcasting network Odeo when Apple surprised the industry by adding podcasts to iTunes. As soon as that occurred, the Odeo founders realized their company was in peril and held a brainstorming session to consider alternative business ventures.

Wouldn’t it be amazing, wondered Jack Dorsey, if there existed a mobile social network that would let your friends know what you were doing in real time? When Dorsey presented his plan for Twitter, his superiors approved it. While they continued their podcasting efforts, they offered Dorsey permission to work on his side project, twittr – a site that allows users to submit short status updates.

As Jack stated when he released his sketch of the service he had in mind, “I’m happy this idea has taken root; I hope it thrives.”

It changed its name to Twitter and became its own corporation in 2006, with Dorsey serving as the CEO.

The founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey has explained the origin of the “Twitter” title:

“…we came across the word “twitter”, and it was just perfect. The definition was ‘a short burst of inconsequential information’, and ‘chirps from birds’. And that’s exactly what the product was.”

By 2012, there were more than 140 million active users tweeting 340 million tweets per day. It was among the top ten most visited websites in 2013.

By the start of 2019, Twitter had more than 330 million monthly active users.

Elon Musk, a business tycoon, purchased Twitter on October 27, 2022, for US$44 billion and took ownership of the social media network.

Elon changed the name of the website from Twitter to X on July 23, 2023. Musk revealed in a tweet that he wants to make X into an “everything” app.

“Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing. The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140-character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video.”

Sorry, did I say tweet? Oops, I guess Musk X-ed the reason sounds right? Ain’t it, Musk?

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