twttr sketch
On May 31st, 2000, I signed up with a new service called LiveJournal. I was user 4,136 which entitled me a permanent account and street cred in some alternate geeky universe which I have not yet visited. I was living in the Sunshine Biscuit Factory in Oakland California and starting a company to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the web.
One night in July of that year I had an idea to make a more "live" LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. Akin to updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it. For the next 5 years, I thought about this concept and tried to silently introduce it into my various projects. It slipped into my dispatch work. It slipped into my networks of medical devices. It slipped into an idea for a frictionless service market. It was everywhere I looked: a wonderful abstraction which was easy to implement and understand.
The 6th year; the idea has finally solidified (thanks to the massively creative environment my employer Odeo provides) and taken a novel form. We're calling it twttr (though this original rendering calls it stat.us; I love the word.ed domains, e.g. gu.st/). It's evolved a lot in the past few months. From an excited discussion and persuasion on the South Park playground to a recently approved application for a SMS shortcode. I'm happy this idea has taken root; I hope it thrives.
Some things are worth the wait.
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Ej Dragana Dragana, Greg Has Pants, hober, ☮, and 791 other people added this photo to their favorites.
eggplantia5 (51 months ago)
awesome. love these docs.
bizstone (51 months ago)
Right on, Jack. It is an awesome idea, no wonder it has haunted you lo these many years. I'm psyched that I'm here to see it launch!
sem (51 months ago)
jack, you rock. congratulations.
Ej Dragana Dragana (47 months ago)
I.stumble.upon.twitter.some.months.ago.and.no w.when.I.read.this.it's.pretty.clear.to.me.wh y.I.think.twitter.is.genius.idea.on.the.work. You.guys.rock!
"Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy."
and...
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."
!!! k2208 (41 months ago)
wow! storia!
--
http://www.google.com/reader/view/ (?)
Lee Nutter (41 months ago)
It's like a fairy tale :)
dubbie (41 months ago)
already very addicted. haha.
Tommy Palmer [deleted] (41 months ago)
The Orgins of the Twitterverse.
Jrome (41 months ago)
Twitter rocks! Glad you thought of it and had the chance to bring it out. I'd probably have just thought about ymmy saltines.
Jim Callender (41 months ago)
cool wireframe.. glad you perservered with your original idea!
www.twitter.com/JimCallender
TaoOfJoe (41 months ago)
Good Things come to those who wait. ditto sem, you rock jack!
LenEdgerly (41 months ago)
Historic doc showing 1st 2 Tweets ever: "In Bed" & "going to park". Very cool.
knnkanda (41 months ago)
wow you choiced so cool and good!
okdt (41 months ago)
Let me ask a question.
Have you ever found any *unexpected* usage of twitter?
bsabet (40 months ago)
twitter rules
atkailash (38 months ago)
Cool! And I love twitter! Great to see how it started.
Barack Obama is my homeboy (35 months ago)
that's my birthday! :}
doctor health (32 months ago)
you go bad.and sleep. the computer make you ill
striatic (31 months ago)
so this is how it all started?
awesome!
--
[discovered in the photophlow welcome room] (?)
Jenn ♥ (30 months ago)
Very cool!
NetpopJosh (29 months ago)
Love the sketch! Please add the story to Project Netpop - reflections of the digital age.
Thanks.
Arjay Arceo (27 months ago)
OH gosh, I didn't know you were the CEO/creator of twitter.
arjunghosh (27 months ago)
Am a total fan of twitter :) thanks for that night when u thought it up :)
MichelleMcCormack (27 months ago)
Well, it sure is thriving.
jennschwab (27 months ago)
personally, I don't really care to have everyone knowing where I am or what I'm doing.
jerseyfreeze (27 months ago)
@jennschwab: you don't actually have to tell anyone
zafarali (27 months ago)
awesome!
ibernat (27 months ago)
I'm actually writing my BS about Twitter and how to implement the API with my app :)
magerleagues (25 months ago)
Great sketch
touchyphiliac [deleted] (25 months ago)
I'm user #375 on LJ!
Samreen Soomro (24 months ago)
Good to know how it all started :) Love Twitter.
jensmccabe (24 months ago)
Jack - Twitter is now completely integrated into my personal and professional lives. It let's me keep in touch with my Nexthealth crew across the pond in Holland (when I'm stateside).
THANK YOU for not giving up on it.
"Time is like a river, made up of things which happen, and its current is strong..." - Marcus Aurelius
Thank goodness this river led to Twitter.
timlonghurst (24 months ago)
Haha! The two examples on the note pad are "in bed" and "going to park" - mundane life update tweets make the WORST tweets... The BEST tweets are when people tell you what they're reading, what's on their mind, what they're seeing on the street that's worth commenting on... It's about condensing the remarkable things in your life to a few characters to jog your memory and share with friends in more detail later! But that's me.
So cool that this sketch/explanation is posted to the web. Thanks for sharing 27 months ago... Took me a while to get to this: I'm reading every page of the internet in order. From @timlonghurst.
jeremiah_owyang (24 months ago)
Thanks for Sharing Jack!
@jowyang
LucretiaPruitt (24 months ago)
Okay, that's very cool!!
I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my "permanent" livejournal account now that I spend all of my time on Twitter. ;)
AFPR.com (24 months ago)
Jack - Time to re-visit earlier thoughts
"...starting a company to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the web..."
This is one of the directions that I believe you can take Twitter. Regardless congratulations on making Twitter a Verb. NO, make that Congratulations on making Twitter "Multiple Verbs"
www.twitter.com/A_F
Stephanie @ XueWen (24 months ago)
Awesome...
Thanks.
Stephanie
www.twitter.com/cStephanie
Nick Sergeant (24 months ago)
Kind of like looking at a historical document. Awesome.
gvanhoof (24 months ago)
twitter is great and i love to attend to the twitter events in barcelona.
jrgd (24 months ago)
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called R-Echos, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
dpereira (23 months ago)
Great! Like the status side spirals on the top.
Oskar Lissheim-Boethius (22 months ago)
History in the making.
spatialrhetorics (22 months ago)
Ah! I still use a yellow pad for all of my heavy (intellectual, creative, rhetorical) thinking. This is a pleasure to see!
Jeroen_De_Miranda (22 months ago)
historic document! saw this today on twitter stream of Jeremiah Oywang
Leif Hansen (22 months ago)
Yes, Moleskin notebooks are my #1 productivity tool. Well, maybe my brain would be first. No, scratch that -the brains of my family and friends are first. (Then we move into high tech like Jott, Things & Mindmanager)
Yay for jotting down dreams and then taking action on them!
Twitterization!
www.twitter.com/leifhansen
tittytwister™ (22 months ago)
This idea will FAIL!
Nobody would really use it – grow up!
modulor (21 months ago)
Hey! Un momento historico capturado en foto! FTW!
Ross Hill (21 months ago)
I'm glad you made this sketch.. twitter rocks.
Sean Robertson (19 months ago)
Holy crap, that's amazing!
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