Where Did Twitter Start?

The beginnings of Twitter are very unclear to a lot of people. The wrong people get all of the credit for the influential company that was a joint effort of numerous people. The story that everyone hears about how Twitter began is inaccurate; it fails to mention a lot of important information and people. The main founders are Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass and Evan Williams. Twitter has had a major influence on society, politics, celebrities, businesses and news coverage. It has grown to become something that its founders never thought would happen. They also did not know what could happen, but they did know that it was a place for the public to post anything they wanted and Twitter would not take sides. They knew that the character limit would draw out creativity in people. Although Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey get most of the credit for creating Twitter, which has grown to influence many aspects of society, it was more of the brainwork and support of Dorsey and Noah Glass.

How People Think Twitter Began:

How Twitter began is an interesting question that has multiple answers. A lot of people report and hear the same story that leaves out a lot of crucial information. This is the version that most people have probably heard. It all started when Noah Glass started a company called Odeo, which had plans to create a podcast platform. Evan Williams, who had previously worked for Google, was the first to invest in it (Carlson). He was very involved in the new company and its headquarters eventually moved to his apartment. Williams then asked Biz Stone, another employee from Google, to join Odeo (Carlson). Once Apple created iTunes podcasts, Odeo became unnecessary. The company tried to think up new roads the company could take and Jack Dorsey had thought of one. In February 2006 he came up with the idea of a “status” where you send a message to a number and it would be seen by all of your friends (Carlson). He presented it to the company and everyone was very intrigued by it. Glass decided to call it “Twittr.” Glass was in charge of the project and was very passionate about it. The name eventually became Twitter, and while it was a group effort it would not have happened without Noah Glass (Carlson). In March 2006 Odeo had a prototype for “Twittr”; in July TechCrunch covered “Twittr” for the first time. Odeo company members were very excited about this new product and SMS bills began to go up. The news of an earthquake in San Francisco spread through Twitter, which helped it gain a lot of recognition. By the fall, Twitter had thousands of users (Carlson). This story is not entirely false, but it misses a lot of details.

Evan Williams’ Sneaky Move:

This part of Twitter’s history is accurate, however, but most people do not hear about this side of the story either. In September of that year, Williams wrote a letter to the investors of Odeo telling them that the company was not really going anywhere. He offered to buy back their stock and they agreed to it (Carlson). That stock ultimately became Twitter and five years later it was worth ten times more than it was before. This upset Odeo’s investors, but some of them felt relieved, though they would have liked to invest in Twitter had they known it was the new Odeo (Carlson). People began to question whether Williams was keeping secrets about Twitters future success so that he could buy the shares. Apparently Williams was not always well-received and made selfish decisions (Carlson). To be partially fair, months after he bought back Odeo he offered certain investors a chance to buy into Twitter.

There was a lot of debate over Williams buying the stock. Once he did he changed the name to “Obvious Corps” and then proceeded to fire Noah Glass (Carlson). This was extremely controversial because Glass was a founder of Twitter. He put a lot of effort and care into the company. Supposedly Glass and Williams had clashing personalities and that is the reason Williams fired him (Carlson). Another possibility is that Williams felt that Glass was too involved and he wanted to be CEO. Ultimately Williams was in control because he had the money to buy the stock and Glass did not. Glass left without any equity and felt deceived (Carlson). In 2011 Biz Stone was interviewed on Howard Stern’s talk show. He was named Twitter’s co-founder and failed to mention anything about Glass.

Jack Dorsey:

The real history of Twitter starts with Jack Dorsey who is known as the founder of Twitter; it was his idea that started this revolution. Dorsey is a man who appreciates structure in his life, which is one of the reasons he likes Twitter because it is dependable and structured as well. It is also immediate and mobile, which also reflects his values. Dorsey’s Twitter account (@jack) was the twelfth account created, but since the first eleven were tests his is technically the first (Max). His story starts when he enrolled at the University of Missouri, but was a bored college student who wanted to do something productive rather than learn. His junior year he came across a company called Dispatch Management Service on the Internet. It was a dispatch for bicycle messengers in New York. He discovered a hole in their software and reported it to the company’s chairman, Greg Kidd (Max). Kidd was very impressed by his abilities and wanted to hire him to work for the technological aspect of the company, so in 1995 Dorsey left Missouri and moved to New York. He worked for Kidd and as a result of pressure from his parents, he enrolled in New York University (Max). One month prior to graduation in 1999 he dropped out of NYU to move to San Francisco with Kidd to start a web dispatch firm. He was unsuccessful and eventually fired. In 2002 he moved back to St. Louis feeling like a failure. Three years later he moved back to San Francisco to pursue massage therapy but quickly dropped the idea and instead babysat for Kidd’s children in Berkeley while experimenting with coding and looking for places to apply his knowledge (Max). That year he spotted Evan Williams, a well-known entrepreneur who worked at a podcasting company called Odeo, at a café in California. Dorsey knew that he liked his style of working so he decided to send him his resume even though he was not interested in podcasting (Max). Williams was not that impressed with Dorsey, but he hired him anyway.

The concept of Twitter was born because Williams took a chance. Fortunately for Dorsey, podcasting was out of the picture fairly quickly so Odeo employees were looking for a new direction to take the company. Dorsey suggested an idea he had about a program that would group things that were searched for on the Internet so people could communicate with each other (Max). He created another version, which allowed users to write notes that would disappear after they were read. He started designing programs for one of the early versions of Blackberry. The code he wrote for it he called “STAT.US.” In 2006 public input on the Internet became popular through medias such as MySpace and LiveJounal. Dorsey was introduced to the protocol for texting, called SMS, and was very intrigued by it (Max). He then came up with an idea of using SMS to tell people what you were doing while at the same time learn what everyone else was doing. Some people liked it, but some people thought it was too similar to a program called Off Da Chainz. Dorsey thought about leaving the company, but Noah Glass was a heavy supporter of his idea and had him write the code for it in just two weeks (Max). They thought about naming it jitter or twitch because of the buzzing noises made by cell phones. Instead, Glass combined the two and came up with the name Twitter. The name was already taken, however, by a bird website so Williams bought the site for $7,500 and launched their idea under the name Twittr (Max). Since the limit for SMS text messages was 160 characters, they decided to limit Twitter to 140 characters. Dorsey thought, “Constraint inspires creativity.”

The Real History of Twitter:

The development of Twitter was a collaborative project between Dorsey, Williams and Glass. For a while only Williams and Biz Stone got credit, but in 2011 Dorsey put his name out in public again (Max). Glass complained that he also did not get enough credit so when Dorsey was finally acknowledged, Williams tweeted that Glass did not get enough appreciation. The story of Twitter has a lot of complications because it started out as more of an idea than a tangible invention. Noah Glass wanted to run Twitter as a stand-alone entity, but Williams did not allow it (Max). Apparently since that decision, Glass’ behavior got a little out of hand, which led to him being fired in August 2006. Williams let him go because many people did not want to work with him when he behaved so irrationally (Max). Glass’ Twitter bio says “I started this,” as in he started Twitter. Twitter confused some people because it was too simple; they did not understand its significance. Even the founders were not sure if it was an open system for anyone to help and profit from or if it was a closed platform (Max). Currently, it is a publicly traded company. In 2007, Dorsey was CEO and owned 20% of the company; he believes he could have managed the company better. Dorsey had more power and credit, but Williams’ idea won; Twitter is more about the world than one person (Honan). Even though new companies take years to begin making profits, the financial crisis of 2008 made the company push to make better decisions so Williams replaced Dorsey as CEO and Dorsey was demoted to chairman (Max). Dorsey had mixed feelings about this change, but Williams claimed that he only did it because Dorsey could not handle it. Dorsey viewed Twitter as a means for him to talk about his life while Williams saw it as talking about the world (Honan). Despite his loss, Dorsey still loved being involved in Twitter. However, he felt as though he needed to prove something to the world, like he needed to solve some sort of problem. He found his challenge in commerce; he developed a device called Square that hooks into the headphone jack of mobile devices (Max). It simplifies buying things just like Twitter makes communicating easier.

The Relevance of Twitter:

In 2006 Facebook added the status update feature, which reflected Twitter. Cell phones were connecting to the Internet and allowing people to tweet and not be charged text messaging rates. Twitter bought Vine in 2012, a video recording app, and allowed Vines to attach to tweets (Max). The thought behind Twitter was that it would not be biased; it was merely a place for people to post anything publicly. The Twitter home page showed a bird, and at first had a “friend” option, but that changed to “follow” so that people could decide whether they wanted to read someone’s updates or not. The founders did not know what way Twitter would go; none of them created hashtags, retweeting or the reply system. They did not expect celebrities to have accounts and become the most popular ones. It is difficult to push Twitter in any certain direction because everyone interprets it differently. Everyone uses Twitter for his or her own individual purposes and all the great Twitter accounts are great for different reasons. Twitter has been very beneficial for media coverage. For example, a passenger on a ferry in the Hudson River witnessed the crash landing of the US Airways Airbus A320. Janis Krums tweeted a picture and it turned out to be the best picture taken of the event. Because of instances like this, Twitters users have continued to expand over the years. In 2008 it had 1.3 million users and two years later had more than 100 million. Currently Twitter has 200 million users.

Affect on Politics:

Twitter has had major effects on politics. During times of elections, people are constantly tweeting their support to politicians and policies. The mass amounts of tweets bring people together or sometimes dictate people’s decisions. It has allowed politicians to publish stories and information about their campaigns. It has allowed them the ability for self-promotion (Cillizza). Twitter has turned everything small into something big; every detail matters. Chris Cillizza says, “That mountains=molehills mentality means that readers often have trouble distinguishing the major from the mundane.” It has been a way to find fault in many people who tell the public to trust them. In 2011, Anthony Weiner tweeted a scandalous picture of himself, which was shortly followed by his resignation (Sullivan). This proves that everything that is put out into the twittersphere matters; it can either help or hinder someone’s reputation.

Affect on Business and News Coverage:

Even businesses have benefited from Twitter. Companies start their own Twitter accounts and promote themselves and their products. This attracts potential consumer attention and has a positive affect on the company’s profits. They communicate with customers and use Twitter as a marketing tool. Businesses tweet about specials, sales, events and other news (McIntyre). They benefit from the advertising that can be done on this social media.  Additionally, Twitter has had quite an affect on the news. People hear about a lot of breaking news stories from their Twitter feeds. People have begun to rely on social media to inform them of happenings in the world. The public often gets too much information, but at the same time too little. People are used to receiving little snippets of news and having Twitter spoon-feed the news to them instead of finding it on their own (Harner).

Overview of Twitters Influence on Various Aspects of Society:

Twitter has contributed to the expansion of many parts of society. It has made a difference in the world of politics, news and business. It is interesting how one message containing 140 characters has such a profound effect. Obama gained a lot of followers and support through his Twitter account because of his ability to reach so many people. Nelson Mandela’s death was widely tweeted about and most likely that was the reason many people heard about it. In the case of Anthony Weiner, Twitter was not as advantageous and led to his downfall. Accounts such as Macys tweet about sales and new items in order to promote their business. Twitter has made a difference in the way people become educated about things that are happening all over the world. It is interesting because Dorsey’s original idea was for people to use it for personal use, but Williams’ more global approach seemed to be more favored (Honan).

One Idea Goes A Long Way:

Over the years, the original story of how Twitter got started has varied depending on the source. The true story began with Jack Dorsey, a college dropout who was hired by Evan Williams. His great idea turned into a big hit that was greatly supported by Noah Glass (Max). Twitter was born as a result of their collaborating and company management. Although Dorsey was demoted, he is now the sixth youngest billionaire in America who is no longer in debt. Williams took over the company and Glass never received the credit he deserved (Max). Despite the rough patches, Twitter has grown an impressive amount. The character limit has inspired creativity in everyone. It remains a neutral media site while politicians, celebrities and businesses promote themselves. Even the means by which people receive their news has changed to reading concise blurbs on Twitter. Twitter has had many beneficial and significant effects on people and society. One good idea from one person can create something that drastically changes the way people communicate thoughts and ideas to the public.