Twitter Launches

Setting the scene

In 2006, social media meant MySpace profiles with glitter graphics and Facebook limited to college emails, while blogging platforms like LiveJournal rewarded long posts. Text messaging was exploding, but there was no public, real-time short-message feed. Odeo, a struggling podcasting startup founded by Evan Williams, encouraged employees to brainstorm side projects during Apple's podcast threat.

What happened

Engineer Jack Dorsey pitched 'twttr,' an SMS-based status service limited to 140 characters to fit carrier limits. The first tweet—'just setting up my twttr'—was posted by Dorsey on March 21, 2006. Odeo officially launched Twitter publicly on July 15, 2006. Early adoption was slow until the 2007 South by Southwest festival, where live tweets on plasma screens exploded usage from 20,000 to 60,000 daily tweets.

Why it still matters

Twitter reshaped news, politics, and culture by making real-time, public conversation the default, powering movements from the 2009 Iranian protests to #BlackLivesMatter and Donald Trump's presidency. The hashtag, @reply, and retweet became universal grammar. Memorable detail: the 140-character limit came from SMS, and the platform's original bird logo was named Larry after basketball star Larry Bird.

Background

X, formerly known as Twitter, is an American microblogging and social networking service, headquartered in Bastrop, Texas. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, images, and videos in short posts and like other users' content. The platform also includes direct messaging, video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists, communities, Grok chatbot integration, job search, and a social audio feature. The service's 140-character format shaped early social media style.