Why I Love Twitter

By Bianca Eugene

Twitter, according to http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/Twitter, is a free microblogging site (which is a social media site where a user can make short and frequent posts) that allows you to read and write up to 140 character messages that are called “tweets.” Many people wonder, “Why does Twitter only allow 140 characters?” and/or “Why won’t they allow us to tweet more?”

This is because the creators initially were focusing on making an app for mobile phones and 140 characters was the maximum amount cell phone companies had as the short message service, or SMS. As the years moved along, they kept their initial standard, and still currently do. The amount of characters for a text to be referred to as an SMS as of today is 160.

Twitter’s headquarters is in San Francisco, CA, and of course is available in many other countries worldwide. 

In February of 2006, Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass first discussed the concept of making cell phone text messages statuses, or SMS. The name “Twttr” was chosen by Glass in March of 2006. Today, the social media site is spelled “Twitter.” Both names are pronounced the same way, but the spelling is different. Dorsey sent out the first tweet on March 21 at 9:50 pm, testing out his new creation. He tweeted: “just setting up my twttr.”

March of 2007 brought a new milestone for the newly developed phenomenon; tweets rose from 20,000 a day to 60,000. More and more people started using the new entertainment system, making the creators and co-creators very successful.

When Twitter first began, their logo, a blue bird, was called “Larry the Bird.” Now, the logo is referred to as “The Twitter Bird.”  Back then, people had limited access to Twitter because technology wasn’t as advanced as it is now, but today the application (app) is available on iPhones, Androids, tablets, etc.

The most retweeted tweet was a “selfie” picture Ellen DeGeneres tweeted of herself and other famous people at the Oscars. Twitter makes money from the many advertisements you see on the sides, or on your feed. Sometimes, the ads are in the trending topics section, which garners more attention.

In my opinion, Twitter is so popular because it’s easy to use, you can be up to date with all types of news, celebrities use the app so you can stay connected and get to know them better in a sense, and it’s just entertaining in general. When I’m bored, I go onto Twitter and am automatically entertained. People tweet and retweet funny videos of various things, and I sometimes don’t even see when the time passes by.

Bianca Eugene is a freshman and Journalism major at St. Thomas Aquinas College. She is a contributor to the campus newspaper, The Thoma.

 Sources

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-does-twitter-make-money.html https://about.twitter.com/company

http://twitter.about.com/od/Twitter-Basics/a/The-Real-History-Of-Twitter-In-Brief.htm
http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/Short-Message-Service
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzRkszaGBbY