Blog #6: Twitter

 

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Twitter was founded on March 21st, 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. Jack Dorsey was a software engineer with the idea of finding an easy way to share his friends status' at any given moment. He wanted to create a communication platform where people could share their status at any day and time. The founder of Odeo, Biz Stone liked the idea. Eventually, Dorsey, Stone, and Williams decided that they would keep it simple yet effective and created a 140 character limit on the text. By August 2006, Twitter was officially launched to the world. 

Twitter is defined as a platform that allows you to share real-time, thoughts, information, and links with the Web at large and to be able to communicate directly, privately, or publically with other users. The unique part of Twitter is that users can share their status at any time but cannot exceed the 140 character limit. Twitter is easily accessible, as you do not need to have a Twitter account to view tweets and can get to Twitter via safari or phone app. 

Twitter is used in many different forms. There are many "sides" of Twitter that allow nearly anyone to find something that interests them. The platform is used for keeping in touch, activism, entertainment, business, news, and discussion. I personally use Twitter if I need a good laugh or if I am interested in what's "trending". 

Since Twitter is so widely used on the daily, new things are trending every day. Most times the things trending is what is going on in the world or media at the current moment. There are also several other tabs that users can find news, sports, fun, or entertainment. It is extremely simple to find something on Twitter because all it takes is a simple search and Twitter will bring you to what you are looking for with a keyword. 

Twitter is widely used as a top social networking platform, and many celebrities use Twitter which influences their fans to create accounts in order to keep up with them. It is important to note that unless it is from a verified source, you should not trust everything you see on Twitter. Since it does not take much to create a Twitter account, almost anybody can make one. People use Twitter to share their thoughts, feelings, and opinions which oftentimes are biased. If you are looking for a verified source on Twitter, your best bet would be to go under the "News" tab and look for a verified source. 

Some recent statistics and fun facts about Twitter are: 

• Twitter has over 340 million users
• There are over 500 million tweets sent per day 
• The AD revenue from Twitter in the U.S in 2020 was $1.6 billion 
• 71% of Twitter users use Twitter to get their news
• The Twitter app has 11.7+ million downloads from the App Store