This SMS service provider emerged as the social media platform and was later renamed ‘X’ by the new owner Elon Musk who purchased it for a whopping $44 billion in October 2022.
Twitter History
It is believed that Jack Dorsey proposed the idea of SMS service to communicate to a small group during an “all-day brainstorming session” at the podcasting company Odeo in 2006. Williams explained that the brains behind the original project code name Twttr was ascribed to Noah Glass, inspired by Flickr, and the five-character length of American SMS short codes. They started working on Twitter in February 2006. The first Twitter message was published by Jack Dorsey on March 21, 2006.
Explaining the origin of the word ‘Twitter,’ the co-founder Jack Dorsey had this to say – “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.
X claims its total monthly active user base at 600 million, as of May 2024, with 300 million daily active users.
Read Jack Dorsey’s first Tweet here
Twitter observed rapid growth during the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference. Twitter usage rapidly grew from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000 per day.
The company experienced rapid initial growth and won the “Breakout of the Year” Webby Award in 2009. Twitter was also named the World of the Year by the Global Language Monitor, declaring it a new form of social interaction.
Twitter experienced new growth during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when it was increasingly used for misinformation related to the pandemic.
On June 5, 2021, the Nigerian government banned Twitter indefinitely for spreading misinformation and fake news as the platform removed the tweet of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. The ban from Nigeria was criticised by Amnesty International.
Elon Musk acquired Twitter for US $44 billion on April 25, 2022. The deal was closed on October 27, 2022, following the attempt by Musk to end the deal in July. Soon after acquiring the company, Musk fired top leadership of the company including the CEO Parag Agrawal and instituted himself as the head of the company. Musk also renamed the company from Twitter to X on May 17, 2024, and it was officially changed from twitter.com to X.com.
Most Followed Accounts on X
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Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 189.7millions -
Barack Obama (@BarackObama) 131.7 million -
Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) 112.1 million -
Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) 110.5 million -
Rihanna (@rihanna) 108.1 million -
Katy Perry (@katyperry) 106.3 million -
Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) 100 million -
Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) 95.3 million -
Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 87.5 million -
Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) 83.1 million
According to a Statista report, 24.4 per cent of users said they felt positive about the new logo, while 19.64 felt negative about it. While 40 per cent of users in March mentioned that they were extremely happy using the platform in a years’ time.
First Published: Jul 15 2024 | 1:24 PM IST
