Exactly 5 years ago, the Twitter sensation began. It is hard to imagine living a day without Twitter being mentioned, but not long ago days like that did in fact exist. Its growth was gradual, but amazingly there are about 200 million people that use the website today. These are not just ordinary people either. Even the President of the United States tweets. Just to put some of the numbers in perspective: If there are 140,000,000 tweets on a day-to-day basis, that means that 1,600 tweets must be completed EACH second.
Before it humbly started out as a status update type website, letting the people who starved for answers about what celebrities ate with their cereal. In 2007, it only boasted about 5000 tweets every day. However, two years ago it became a fully reliable news source and a venue for major stories to unfold. It has seen people across the world through major events, tragedies, and celebration-worthy occurrences. For example, the Hudson River plane crash with pilot "Sully" Sullenberger became public knowledge because of Twitter. People protesting in countries such as Iran and Egypt actually utilized the website to make plans and to organize.
While it is wonderful for its "democratization of information," according to Biz Stone (one of Twitter's co-founders), Twitter is also legendary for its incapability to contain the amount of information its users try to view/submit (especially with how often the "Fail Whale" makes an appearance).
Several shifts have occurred within the company, the latest of which was Dick Costolo moving from the COO position to the CEO position less than 1/2 year ago. Now his responsibility will mainly be the task of shifting Twitter to an actual business, which seems like the reasonable thing to do considering it gained $360,000,000 just in investments and has been able to hire 400 employees. At the same time, it has seen little profit on the sidelines.
Tweets need to accumulate wealth if Twitter has any hope of remaining a successful business. There is hope on the horizon due to companies like Google that offer payment to Twitter for its up-to-date postings and information.
Jack Dorsey, who was one of the original Twitter creators, said, "The big thing I learned from Twitter are these concepts of immediacy, transparency, and approachability."
What do you think of these three concepts? How have they affected communication today, and are these effects for the better or for the worse?
For more information on Twitter's 5th birthday, click HERE.
1 comment:
I have just recently begun to use Twitter, as it has gained popularity among my peers at Belmont. I use it to "tweet" inside jokes with my friends or post a random thought. While Twitter is fun as a casual pastime, I don't subscribe to it as a reputable news source. I especially dislike when celebrities use it to issue apologies or condemn other celebrities. While it is helpful for bands to promote the release of a new album or an upcoming tour, there is a lot of useless information available.
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