Twitter is now a decade old! The microblogging site that dawned a new era for social media networks turns 10 on Monday, giving us another reason to share 10 interesting facts about the platform.
It was in March 2006 when Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, sent out the first-ever tweet that read "just setting up my twttr."
As Twitter enters double digits and celebrates its 10th anniversary, Dorsey kicks off the global online celebrations on Sunday afternoon on its blog. A post titled "Thank you! Love, Twitter" invites people to celebrate the milestone with the site.
"On March 21, [10] years ago, it began with a single Tweet. Since then, every moment of every day, people connect about the things they care about most - all over the world," reads the post on the Twitter blog.
Through the years, Twitter has been instrumental in the way people communicate with each other online through the 140-character limit format. Many may have wondered why a tweet is restricted to 140 characters. This is because Twitter was initially designed to be an SMS mobile phone-based platform. The character limit was imposed by mobile network operators based on the protocol standards for SMS. Even though Twitter eventually evolved into a web-based platform, the 140-character limit stuck around.
If you call yourself a Twitter addict, let's test your knowledge of the microblogging platform by checking if you're aware of the 10 interesting Twitter facts below!
Fact #1
Nearly 347,000 tweets are sent out every minute.
Fact #2
Did you know that one of the early names considered for the platform was "Friendstalker"?
Fact #3
The number of Twitter followers Justin Bieber boasts on the site is more than the population of Spain.
Fact #4
Do you know what the Twitter bird's name is? It's called Larry.
Fact #5
Twitter was nearly named Twitch. Prior to finalizing the name, the team checked out the Oxford English Dictionary, and as Dorsey revealed, "We found the word Twitter. And Twitter means a short inconsequential burst of information, chirps from birds. And we were like, that describes exactly what we're doing here." The rest, as they say, is history!
Fact #6
Ending a tweet with an empty hashtag is called a hangtag!
Fact #7
You can find your first-ever tweet at First-Tweets.com.
Fact #8
While Twitter now has a follow option, it was considering a worship feature in the early days. Basically, those who worshipped someone would get to see every single message by that person. However, Twitter powers-to-be thought better and ditched the idea.
Fact #9
The most retweeted tweet is from Ellen DeGeneres. Any guesses which one? It's the star-packed selfie she took at the Oscars in March 2014. It was retweeted 3.4 million times!
Fact #10
The ideal image size for tweeting a photo is 1,000 x 500 – this ensures that the entire image will appear in-stream.
