March 21, 2006, marked the first day of an incredible journey for the platform we now know as Twitter (back then we called it Twitter).
Twitter was so excited to celebrate that it sent messages on its tenth birthday to many of the countries in the world to thank them for their contribution to the platform.
Over the years we have seen so many memorable moments, iconic scenes and changes to the way, we as a race, communicate.
It's been a heck of a ride, Twitter, here's to the next ten!
Iconic Moments on Twitter
Whether it's the shocking scenes of the #ParisAttacks in November which were streamed faster on social media and spawned a number of hashtags including #JeSuisParis and #PrayForParis, or Leonardo DiCaprio winning his first ever Academy Award in 2016, Twitter has been central to them all.
Fastest to reach 1M followers: Caitlyn Jenner (4 hours, 3 minutes)
First to reach 1M followers: @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher) in April 2009
Most retweeted tweet: @TheEllenShow (3.3 million retweets)
Most mentioned person: @justinbieber (943 million mentions)
Tweets per minute record: Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar win, in February 2016, at 440,000 tweets per minute (beating the record of the still-most-retweeted image, to date, shared by @TheEllenShow)
Twitter has now become a pivotal force in news distribution, with people using additional services such as Periscope to report live from the location of significant events, changing the dynamic of news reporting. The micro-content sharing site has become a staple of modern day life for most.
The Future of Twitter
Since the platform's launch it has racked up an impressive amount of stats that show huge growth over the years, including:
- 250 billion likes to date
- 500 million tweets per day, on average
- 320 million users today
- 34.8 billion mentions of 'love' on Twitter
However, what do analysts see for the platform's future?
In recent weeks the hashtag #RIPTwitter has been trending in relation to some of the "suggested" updates that Twitter might be about to undergo.
A lot of people are particularly concerned that they are going to copy the "Facebook" model of algorithmic time lines, rather than the current chronological order. Today, Facebook seems to have lost popularity with varying parts of the population, not least youngsters who seem uninterested in joining the platform.
Marketing Magazine makes an interesting argument for the reason for Twitter's success - the fact that the model has always been different to the norm. Everything about Twitter from the start has been simplistic - say what you want with 140 characters. Even today, it hasn't strayed *too* far away from that concept.
A couple of months ago, Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey tweeted about the potential for changes to Twitter as time went on and there were rumours about a 10,000 character limit to be introduced. Share prices tumbled massively following this announcement.
Why?
We want to use Twitter when we're on Twitter, not Facebook.
Twitter has to accept that it is brilliant brand with a unique platform - which those 320 billion users love (and we do too)!
Tweet with us via @ThriveHQ about Twitter (or anything that you're loving or hating this week) - we'd love to chat!
