Monday, March 21, 2011

Twitter Turns Five Years Old

Happy Birthday Twitter!



This is a great video, be sure to play it...especially if you're a Beatles fan.

Yes, amazingly its been five years since Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sent the world its first tweet "just setting up my twttr". Since that time the micro-blogging site has exploded and I mean exploded.

Since March 21, 2006 literally billions of Tweets have been sent. In fact...today experts estimate that close to one billion are sent every week. These staggering numbers have increased Twitter's value significantly. In 2008 Facebook offered to purchase Twitter for $500 million. Today the company's estimated worth is between $8-10 billion.

Mistakenly, some see Twitter as a forum where people post what they ate for breakfast. But, recently, Twitter's role in reporting events during times of political unrest and natural disasters has lifted its status. During its recent elections the Iranian government banned media coverage...Twitter remained one of the only sources of information coming out of the country. Twitter became so important during this time "its role even resulted in calls among some in the Bush administration for Twitter to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize" (BBC News).

There is no doubt in my mind that Twitter will be around in five years to celebrate it 10th birthday and maybe even its 25th there-after.

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