Would you believe it, Twitter is exactly six years old today. That’s right, the social micro-blogging site may feel like a relatively new find for many, but its co-founders actually launched it on March 21st, 2006.
Back then things were very different, for starters the website was originally called ‘Twttr’ – back when vowels simply weren’t cool. Four co-founders launched the website as a way for employees of Odeo, a podcasting company that they all worked for, to communicate quickly and internally. It was this day in 2006 that Jack Dorsey, one of the co-founders, posted the first ever message using the service: “just setting up my twttr”.
Six years on and the site has not only gained the relevant vowels to turn Twttr into Twitter, but also a pretty big user base. Over 532 million accounts have been registered in six years, of which Twitter says around 140 million are currently active users. Keeping things short and sweet when it comes to sharing seems to appeal to its users, with over 340 million tweets sent per day.
While many people decide to not use Twitter for whatever reason – many tell me they don’t see the point of it – there’s no denying it has become a powerful tool for keeping up to date with the latest goings on in almost any corner of the world.
It seems these days, in the technology world at least, that when news breaks first, it breaks on Twitter. The same can be said for last year’s infamous London riots, when Twitter became the place to see and hear what was happening as it happened. Protests have even been organized through the social website, such as the Occupy Wall Street movement, with people praising the site for bringing like-minded people together easily.
What Does the Future Hold for Twitter?
Twitter may be six years old with millions upon millions of tweets sent daily, but it still has a long way to go. There are features we’d like added, improvements we’d like to see made, and much more.
For starters, we feel the option to open and close a tweet to view a conversation needs to go – it’s clunky and pretty unnecessary. This feature could easily be linked to our next suggestion – the ability to click an image link from any source (yfrog, twitpic, instagram, lockerz etc) in a tweet and have a thumbnail of the picture appear below.
Surely Twitter could scrap the open and close feature but work a similar action to open up and show a picture. It sounds lazy but having to flick to another tab to see an image just to close it again and return to Twitter is becoming more than a bit of a bind.
We’re still not sure why just about every Twitter app and client in the world gives you the option to edit a retweet before sending it, but the Twitter website doesn’t. Retweeting is frustratingly simple in that you click it and it’s done, there’s no room for adding a comment or tagging somebody else so they see your tweet. Of all the things to sort, please, please fix this one, Twitter.
As for additions, we feel that Twitter could take a leaf out of Tumblr’s book and add something really simple – a button to take you right back to the top of your timeline. Nice and easy, one click to save all that scrolling.
We’re sure there are many things that others would like to see in Twitter, and possibly even different things that bug them too. Why not share them with us, in no more than 140 characters, in the comments below.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.