Twitter is a social network that was founded in 2006. It has over 140 million active users and 500 million tweets a day. The company’s revenues were $ 600 million in 2014, with the potential to earn even more as the company grows globally.
1. What is Twitter?
Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to post and read short text updates called tweets. The user can register, create a username or have an account with another provider and log in to twitter.com using his name and password.
The service user cannot send private messages to other Twitter users if they are not following each other – unless they have been added as friends – but public tweets can be sent without following the recipient.
Users can also block other users from following them or watching their tweets by unfollowing or blocking those specific people.
2. Why do people use it?
Twitter users – the people who post and read tweets – can benefit from a few tips for tweeting, such as: keep your updates in tune, speak as you would in a normal conversation, and use no more than 140 characters.
Twitter is most used by current and former journalists who want their voices to be heard and to maintain their professional contacts. Other professionals also use it for networking and job search. There are also those who use a large number of their followers, post links and comments.
3. How to use it?
There are several ways to tweet, the most popular is Twitter.com. It has a service called “tweetdeck” which allows users to program their tweets into columns and then send them at different times. There are mobile applications that can be downloaded to send messages on mobile devices or tablets.
There are also other services, such as TweetDeck, which works on computers and Android devices.
4. The story of Twitter and its founders, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams
Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, two San Francisco-based computer programmers, began working on an idea for a new text service that became known as Twitter. Dorsey got the idea while working at the Odeo website design company, where he developed the concept of status updates that are sent to other subscribers. He believed it would be more effective than texting. At the same time, he noticed that notification services such as Yahoo! Pipes is a huge potential market, so he teamed up with Williams to start his own company.
Twitter was launched on March 21, 2006. In its first year of operation, it had over a million registered users – in two years that number has grown to five million.
Twitter is used by 500 million people around the world, with approximately 325 million active users in September 2016.