With Twitter’s first (and probably best) full decade on the books, it’s time to look back on what the social network has given us. Popular from the beginning, it took less than three years after the first tweet (“just setting up my twttr” – @jack) for Twitter to overtake all but the powerhouse social networks of Facebook and Myspace in monthly visitors. It’s biggest draw was also an common topic of early detractors: the 140-character limit.
A universal lesson on brevity, the character count stifled oversharing common on Twitter’s contemporaries and prioritized the punchy. The influential could now share their thoughts and engage in discussion with fans, but they had to do it fast — distilling the dopamine high of web browsing down to a stream of blue birds, all chirping in real time. This “nowness” facilitated community; Twitter during sporting events and national tragedies, or just checking the line at a store, came to present a new kind of social search engine.
But our favorite aspect of Twitter is the blue bulldozer that removed all barriers between social classes, geography and, most uniquely, between producer and fan. Instead of handwriting fan mail to your favorite musician, or author, and waiting a few weeks to receive no response, Twitter allowed for immediacy in interaction with our heroes. These are the ones that matter most to us when they chirp. — J. Travis Smith
Wanna get inside the musings of a modern day mad scientist? Here’s your handle. @elonmusk
