In April, Twitter introduced a new version of its homepage with a sleeker design and revamped pitch to potential users; expanded its Local Trends feature to 70 more cities and countries; and updated its search tool to make it easier to find new people to follow. Meanwhile, talks about Twitter’s future intensified as CNN reported UberMedia — the company behind UberSocial, Echofon and Twidroyd — is “outlining plans” to develop a Twitter-like competitor. But Twitter users, have no fear — Mashable‘s Chris Taylor says Twitter “is a lot more robust — and unrepeatable — than it may seem.”
This month has gotten off to a fast start as Twitter was abuzz on May 1 with speculation and subsequent confirmation of terrorist Osama bin Laden’s death. At one point that night, Twitter recorded 5,106 tweets per second, which is the third highest tweets-per-second tally behind only numbers registered during New Year’s Eve 2011 in Japan and the destructive tsunami there in March.
Busy two month so far, eh? We think so, which got us interested in finding out how the Twitter activity in April and May stacks up against previous months. So with the help from Mashable‘s new Explore page, we delved deep into some of the most memorable moments in Twitter’s eventful five years of existence.
Twitter’s Abridged Timeline
March 2006: Dorsey creates Twitter. On March 31, he publishes the first tweet ever, which says, “just setting up my twttr.”
July 2006: The microblogging service officially launches to the public on July 15. Later this month, co-founder Biz Stone explains what Twitter is in a hilarious video on YouTube.
March 2007: Twitter turns 2.
April 2007: The Twitter service becomes its own company.
October 2008: Dorsey steps down as CEO to assume a less-intensive role as chairman of the board; co-founder Evan Williams replaces Dorsey.
November 2008: Twitter passes 1 billion tweet mark.
March 2009: Twitter turns 3 on the heels of a Nielsen Online report indicating Twitter grew 1,382% year-over-year.
June 2009: AP Stylebook adds Twitter terms, and concerns over Twitter’s flatlining growth emerge.
July 2009: Twitter earns spot in Collins English Dictionary as a noun and a verb.
September 2009: Twitter changes default avatar to a picture of a bird.
October 2009: Twitter passes the 5 billion tweet mark.
January 2010: NASA astronaut T. J. Creamer sends the first unassisted tweet from space aboard the International Space Station.
February 2010: Users start clocking in more than 50 million tweets per day.
March 2010: Twitter turns 4.
April 2010: Twitter’s advertising platform, Promoted Tweets, goes live (see video below).
June 2010: Twitter users set a new record for tweets per second — 3,085 — during Game 7 of the NBA playoffs between the L.A. Lakers and the Boston Celtics. That record was short-lived though, as users broke it later in the month with 3,283 tweets per second at the end of the World Cup match between Japan and Denmark. Twitter rolls out new ads in trending topics section.
July 2010: Twitter search results begin showing people, too. Furthermore, Twitter starts offering personalized suggestions of users to follow with a feature called “Suggestions for You.”
August 2010: Twitter launches the “Tweet Button,” an official option for web publishers to count retweets and let their readers easily share content (see video below). Twitter surpasses MySpace in number of unique monthly visitors. Between August 2009 and August 2010, Twitter grew 76% to 96 million unique visitors, while MySpace dropped 17% to 94 million.
September 2010: Twitter begins rolling out the new Twitter.com web interface, adding new ways to embed multimedia into the stream (see video below). Twitter changes the default avatar picture to a drawing of an egg.
October 2010: Twitter co-founder Evan Williams steps down as CEO, handing the title over to COO Dick Costolo.
January 2011: eMarketer predicts Twitter will triple its advertising revenue to $150 million in 2011. Twitter users in Japan set a new record for tweets per second — almost 7,000 — in the moments just after the country entered the year 2011. Twitter put together this cool map visualization that shows activity spreading west, from time zone to time zone, as each new region welcomes the new year.
February 2011: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak steps down amid a groundbreaking digital revolution in which Twitter played a much-debated role. Users, among other methods, put hashtags #Jan25 and #Egypt in their tweets. Rumors swirl about whether Google or Facebook will buy Twitter for as much as $10 billion.
March 2011: Twitter turns 5 and sees the return of Twitter inventor and co-founder Jack Dorsey, who officially comes back to the company as executive chairman. Also, Sharespost values Twitter at $7.7 billion.
April 2011: Twitter introduces a new version of its homepage with a sleeker design and revamped pitch to potential users; expands its Local Trends feature to 70 more cities and countries; and updates its search tool to make it easier to find new people to follow. Talks about Twitter’s future intensify as CNN reported UberMedia — the company behind UberSocial, Echofon and Twidroyd — is “outlining plans” to develop a Twitter-like competitor.
May 2011 (as of May 4): Twitter use ramps up on May 1 with speculation and subsequent confirmation of terrorist Osama bin Laden’s death. At one point that night, Twitter records 5,106 tweets per second, which is the third highest tweets-per-second tally behind only numbers registered during New Year’s Eve 2011 in Japan and the destructive tsunami there in March. Reports of Twitter’s TweetDeck acquisition surface, saying an announcement about the much-rumored deal may be made in a few days.
1 comments:
Thanks for a great post as always. Very informative. Peter.
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