San Francisco, EE.UU.
Just create my twttr account. From this post, the first ever published on the social network, today, Sunday, fifteen years ago, and behind it hides a story of visionaries, betrayal and an unexpected success, until it became the forum on current public opinion in the world .
The author of the first tweet was the co-founder and current CEO, Jack Dorsey, on March 21, 2006 and just a decade and a half later, he put it up for sale at an online public auction in which he offers it is currently higher than 2 and a half million dollars.
A NETWORK FOR FRIENDS
When the blue bird social network was born fifteen years ago, its creators had a completely different product in mind than the one we know today, focusing more on a communication platform between friends and acquaintances than on a giant public forum from which to view during the Donald Trump’s presidency came to rule the US.
“The word ‘twitter’ (chirping, in English) was perfect. They defined it as’ a brief explosion of insignificant information ‘and’ the chirping of birds’ and that was exactly the product we had, ‘explains Dorsey herself. in an interview about the origins of the company.
As in the case of its main competitor, Facebook, and many other successful technology companies, the story varies about its principles and to whom the idea can be attributed, depending on who you ask, and the participation of one of the four people for years. they are nowadays considered founders.
TREASURES AND JEWELRY IN THE ORIGIN
Evan Williams and Biz Stone (both former Google employees), Jack Dorsey (then a student at New York University), and entrepreneur Noah Glass came up with the product prototype during a brainstorming session when they all worked for Odeo., A podcast company founded by Glass.
It was precisely the latter who led the team responsible for the development of Twitter, which the employees of that early period described as the platform’s “spiritual leader”, fully engaged and obsessed with this new service, the function of which few have fully understood.
However, Williams – who by then had taken control of Odeo – fired Glass for reasons that have never been clarified (the most common version is a clash of personalities), while simultaneously banning him from the official story of the company’s origins. .
Only years later, with Twitter already consolidated as a giant of Internet communications, the figure of Glass was gradually appreciated, who admitted feeling betrayed by his former colleague, and who is currently considered fundamental in the founding of the platform.
THE EARTHQUAKE AND THE VALUE OF “LIVE”
In the first months of life in 2006, Twitter was basically an internal communication tool for Odeo employees, sending text messages through it, mostly unobtrusive content between friends and colleagues.
But at sunrise on August 3 of that year, something radically changed: a small earthquake with a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter scale shook the ground in San Francisco very timidly, something seen by some but not others. .
“Did anyone just notice the earthquake?”, “I just noticed that earthquake. No one else here noticed it”, “Damn, I always miss them!”, The platform spontaneously became a space to comment and learn more to come across the news and since then the “live” or “vivo” has been forever linked to Twitter.
The person collecting these historic tweets is Biz Stone, one of the four founders, in a post on the company’s blog explaining how his partner didn’t believe him when he said he spotted the earthquake, and that it should his Twitter that gave him the reason.
IN THE CENTER OF THE DEBATE
Fifteen years have passed since then, and it is precisely this ability of Twitter to act as a topical forum and the immediacy of the information that poses the main challenge for the time to come: deciding where the boundaries of freedom of expression lie. On the Web.
Right now, the Blue Bird company has embarked on 2021 with one of the riskiest and most controversial decisions in its history: to permanently close the account of what was the most famous gathering of the past four years, the former president of the United States. Donald Trump (2017-2021).