Jack Dorsey's experiment, Elon Musk's empire: 20 years of twttr, now X, and how it changed the world
An SMS experiment became the world's newswire, then a billionaire's obsession. On its 20th birthday, Twitter's legacy is complicated.
From an SMS-inspired platform to the world's real-time information infrastructure, Twitter – now X – evolved from a microblogging experiment into a digital town square over two decades.
A star is born
Twitter, originally called twttr, launched on July 15, 2006. Months earlier, co-founder Jack Dorsey posted the first tweet: “just setting up my twttr.” It took off at the 2007 SXSW conference, when real-time updates made it an instant hit.
Changing the online lexicon
Twitter soared after user Chris Messina proposed using the "hashtag" (#) in 2007 to group posts. The retweet soon followed, reshaping how information spread online.
The world's newswire
It became a real-time news platform in 2009 when a passenger posted a photo of US Airways Flight 1549 after its Hudson River landing. During the Arab Spring...
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