Twitter turns ten today.
As it enters its awkward pre-teen years, the company that invented fame in 140 characters has had a tough run recently. It lost its longtime CEO Dick Costolo, who was replaced by co-founder and formerly ousted CEO turned new CEO-slash-savior Jack Dorsey. Yes, people use Twitter (more than 300 million of them), and yes, Twitter brings in money (more than $500 million each quarter), but its stock plummeted to an all-time low this year as Wall Street worried over its slowing user growth.
People rightfully complain that the platform can be a hotbed for hostility. It also offers a loudspeaker for the disenfranchised, but swarms of voices also silence through harassment. It’s a company, it’s a platform, and it’s the world’s biggest cocktail party. That means sometimes it’s a mess.
But for all its problems, Twitter is everywhere. It’s the place where the world talks to itself, often sharing and even making news in the process. Twitter has become a powerful force, but it wasn’t always that way.
It all begins with a tweet from Jack Dorsey himself.
The San Francisco crew that birthed Twitter as a spinoff of a podcasting company starts chiming in.
The @reply is born.
As is the #hashtag.
In late 2008, co-founder Ev Williams takes over as CEO.
By 2009, news starts breaking on Twitter, most famously when Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger made a successful emergency landing in the Hudson River.
That same year, the first major Twitter celebrity passes 1 million followers.
The next day, Oprah joins.
Then the first tweet posted from space arrives.
By 2010, the Library of Congress had determined Twitter is important enough to be preserved for posterity.
The next year, Twitter plays a central role in the Arab Spring #revolution.
It’s also one of the first places where signs appeared that something was about to go down in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Spoiler: Osama Bin Laden was killed.)
And it becomes an organizing tool for Occupy Wall Street.
Hey, celebrities use Twitter to rant at airlines too!
By 2012, Twitter was getting weird.
Welcome to social media, Pope Benedict.
In 2013, Twitter launches Vine, the eminently shareable six-second video clips that have spawned the careers of a new kind of celebrity.
The ad industry’s collective head explodes over the seeming potential of real-time advertising tied to major events, such as the power going out at Super Bowl XLVII.
Weird Twitter stays weird.
Also in 2013, Twitter becomes a publicly traded company.
Ellen tweets the most retweeted tweet of all time at the 2014 Oscars.
Sports take over Twitter as the 2014 World Cup in Brazil becomes the site’s biggest sports event to date.
Tweetstorms begin to form.
Twitter acquires and launches live video service Periscope.
Caitlyn Jenner becomes the fastest Twitter account to reach 1 million users.
@jack is back.
And POTUS finally tweets.
It turns out people really like “faves” and really don’t like “likes.”
And, don’t forget Election 2016 Twitter…
So, thanks Twitter. But, really, you have distracted from my creative process.
