Twitter Anniversary: How the Microblogging Platform Has Evolved Since Its Launch in 2006

Twitter has been in the spotlight in 2022 for more than one reason. Among them, the first is the appointment of a new CEO, Parag Agarwal, replacing co-founder Jack Dorsey and then the big stake takeover by Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO announced to take over the social media company for $44 billion in April this year. However, Musk backed out of the deal recently, claiming that Twitter was unwilling to share data on spam accounts. But how did Twitter become the social media giant it is today.

On the company’s 16th anniversary on Friday, we take a look at its history and evolvement over the years:

1. The idea of Twitter was inspired by the podcasting venture Odeo where Jack Dorsey worked as an engineer. After Apple announced its plans to add podcasts to its iTunes, Odeo’s management realised that they needed a new direction. And just then, Dorsey came up with the idea of a short message service (SMS) where users could share small blog-like updates with their friends.
2. After the initial approval from the management, Dorsey began working on the project which was initially titled “Twttr”.
3. On March 21, 2006, Dorsey sent out the first tweet ever and nearly four months later on July 15, 2006, Twitter finally came into existence.
4. The following year, Twitter Inc came into its independent existence with Dorsey leading the charge as CEO.
5. Twitter along with Facebook lead a social media revolution around the globe and the micro-blogging site soon started gaining popularity.
6. In 2007, the social media company introduced hashtags on its platform, an idea that initially was not received with much enthusiasm. However, it connected with Twitter users and hashtags became a crucial part of its functioning.
7. In 2009, Twitter introduced a Verified account system and the verification tick after many celebrities complained of fake accounts of their names. The same year, the feature of retweets was also added to the platform.
8. As Twitter gained over 100 million new years in 2010, the company added a promoted tweets option as a monetisation feature.
9. To address online bullying and harassment, Twitter added an anti-abuse option allowing users to filter, block and report objectional content. The company also added the feature of DMs to the platform.
10. While Twitter was initially introduced with a character limit of 140, it increased to 280 in 2017.
11. In 2020, Twitter introduced Stories and Spaces to its platform. However, Stories were later removed due to poor response by users.
12. All in all, it is safe to say that Twitter has become an integral part of our life.