Today, there are 436 million active Twitter users in any given month. This social media platform has been around for almost 20 years, and as you can see, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
Twitter set itself up for success by offering something other social media platforms didn’t have: short and punchy posts. This allows its users to broadcast rapid-fire tweets to the world.
Whether you have an account or not, there’s no doubt that Twitter is fascinating.
Want to learn more about it? Then keep reading. We’ll give you a quick look at the history of Twitter.
The Beginning
The idea of Twitter first began in 2006. This was way before Elon Musk made the decision to buy Twitter for $44 billion, which we’ll explain more about later. New York University undergraduate student Jack Dorsey thought up the concept.
He was in luck, as the podcasting company Odeo was interested in the area of text messaging. Odeo co-founder Biz Stone worked together with Dorsey, along with contractor Florian Weber, to create a prototype of Twitter in two weeks.
The first Twitter message went out on March 21, 2006. Dorsey tweeted: “just setting up my twttr.”
Initially, the Twitter prototype was solely used for internal communications at Odeo. Once it was refined, the company released the full version to the public on July 15, 2006.
Later, in October 2006, Dorsey, Stone, another co-founder Evan Williams, and some other Odeo members formed Obvious Corporation. This new company included Odeo.com and Twitter.com, and separated these assets from prior shareholders and investors.
In April 2007, Twitter broke off from Obvious Corporation and became its own company.
Gaining Traction
The 2007 South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) Conference changed everything for Twitter.
Twitter’s staff put two 60-inch plasma TVs in the hallways. On these screens, they streamed Twitter messages, and the attendees would see what was going on through the tweets that were featured. In addition, speakers talked about the platform, and bloggers wrote about it as well.
If you can’t envision just how successful Twitter was, picture this: normally, there were only 20,000 tweets per day. During this event, the number tripled to 60,000 tweets per day.
Controversy Over Iran
The Green Revolution in Iran happened in November 2009. Member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff Jared Cohen reached out to the company.
Twitter scheduled maintenance that coincided with The Green Revolution, and Cohen wanted them to delay it. His reasoning was that many Iranians used Twitter as a way to coordinate and carry out the revolution effectively.
The problem? President Barack Obama specifically said that the US wouldn’t interfere with the revolution.
So as you can imagine, Cohen’s request was highly controversial.
Expansions and Explosions in Growth
In April 2012, new offices in Detroit and Dublin, Ireland, were announced. The focus of the Detroit office was advertising agencies and automotive brands.
These expansions were highly needed, as the social media platform exceeded 100 million monthly active users in September 2011. A little over a year later, it exceeded 200 million monthly active users in December 2012.
Later, in April 2021, Twitter expanded into the African market by opening a headquarters in Ghana.
Attempt to Grow the Platform
After such vigorous growth, Twitter actually saw a decrease in daily tweets. There were around 500 million in September 2013, and this grew to 661 million in August 2014. However, this dropped to around 300 million in January 2016.
In May 2016, Dorsey decided to take action. At the time, Twitter still had a 140-character limit, which included both links and photos. He excluded these things to entice people to tweet more.
Takeover Approaches
In September 2016, there were reports of takeover approaches, with potential buyers such as:
- Alphabet
- Microsft
- Salesforce.com
- Verizon
- The Walt Disney Company
As a result of these reports, Twitter shares rose 20%.
Despite all this buzz, a takeover failed within a month. This was due to concerns about abuse and harassment that happened on Twitter.
Elon Musk’s Messy Acquisition
In April 2022, Elon Musk bought 9.1% of Twitter. He became part of the board after he signed a deal that prevented him from owning more than 14.9% of the platform.
As a result of this sale, Twitter stocks rose by 27%. In fact, it was the largest intraday surge since its initial public offering (IPO) in 2013!
In less than half a week of Musk’s board appointment, he offered to buy all of Twitter for $43 billion on April 14th, with the intent of making it private. A day later, the board initiated a “poison pill” strategy to try and block Musk.
It seemed like the acquisition would go through on April 20, when Musk offered the board $46.5 billion, and the board accepted five days later. But of course, things are never easy with Elon Musk.
He then pulled the offer on July 8th. The company retaliated with a lawsuit against Musk on July 12th, and the shareholders also voted to approve the takeover on September 13th.
Finally, Musk pushed the deal through on October 4th. It closed on October 27th, and merged Twitter and X Holdings II. In the end, he paid $44 billion.
Twitter Today
As of late 2022/early 2023, Twitter’s still a mess. Musk dissolved the board of directors, made himself the CEO, and fired half of the company’s employees. This left Twitter severely understaffed, and they rehired some of these people, claiming that the firings were a mistake.
That’s not all; those who remained employed with Twitter were told to expect grueling hours fo work. This led to many workers quitting their jobs either that day or the next.
Twitter’s Had an Interesting History
As you can see, this social media platform has quite some history. It started off as a simple variation of text messaging, went on to be a vital tool in The Green Revolution, and then, in recent times, was bought by Elon Musk.
Although it’s chaos now, who knows what the future of Twitter holds?
To learn more cool facts, keep reading our blog page now.
