Happy 7th Birthday Twitter!

Rachel Ramsey : Social Spotlight
Rachel Ramsey
Graduated from James Madison University with a B.A. in Media Arts and Design and a minor in Communication Studies
| Welcome to Social Spotlight! When I'm not covering a variety of technology and communications industries - everything from the cloud and VoIP to customer relationship management and data centers - you will find me on social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, foursquare, YouTube, Tumblr... you name it, I'm there

Happy 7th Birthday Twitter!

In 2006, Suri Cruise was born, Italy won the FIFA World Cup, the one billionth song was downloaded on iTunes and Facebook opened up to everyone ages 13 and older. In 2006, I was still in high school and was four years away from creating my Twitter account and sending my first tweet. Seven years ago today, Jack Dorsey tweeted his very first 140-character message.

Today, Twitter has 200 million active users who send 400 million tweets per day.

“As we’ve grown, Twitter has become a true global town square — a public place to hear the latest news, exchange ideas and connect with people all in real time. This is where you come to connect with the world at large,” Karen Wickre, editorial director at Twitter, wrote in a blog post.

Wickre could not be more right – Twitter has evolved into a platform for real-time response, opinions and information, especially for major events. You can’t watch the Grammys, the Super Bowl, March Madness or any breaking news without seeing an overwhelming number of tweets related to the topic.

In celebration of Twitter’s seventh birthday, here are the top seven moments on the microblogging site.

  1. Dorsey’s first tweet, which was also the world’s first.
  2. The uprising in Iran, which drew millions of Iranians into the streets and elicited an unprecedented number of tweets about a political election.
  3. Haiti earthquake response; journalists used mobile networks to post messages, photos and news on Twitter.
  4. Sohaib Athar’s leak on the raid on Osama bin Laden. “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).”
  5. The response to the Japanese earthquake and tsumani validated the site as a place to go for information as well as to vent feelings of grief.
  6. “Four more years.” by Barack Obama after winning the 2012 presidential election remains the most retweeted tweet to date.
  7. Turning control of @pontifex to Pope Francis ignited 130,000 tweets per minute.


Here’s to many more – can’t wait to see what the next seven years hold for us! Happy tweeting.
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