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General Information

Websitetwitter.com
Blogtwitter.com/blog
CategoryWeb
Email
Employees17
Founded3/06

Offices

San Francisco, USA
164 South Park
San Francisco, CA, 94107
USA

People

Product Development
Co-founder & Creative Director
Distributed Systems Architect
Engineer
Operations Manager
Senior Operations Engineer
Operations Manager
Operations Engineer
Lead of User Experience Team
Engineer
Board Member
Engineer
cofounder, board of directors
Advisor/Investor
Engineer, User Experience Group
cofounder, CEO

Acquisitions

Total$15M
Values of n, 11/08
Summize, 7/08 $15M

Funding

Competitors

Tags

Twitter

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams and launched in July 2006, is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message. The company has been busy adding features to the product like Gmail import and search. They recently launched a new site section called “Explore” for external and third party tools that interact with Twitter and a new visualization tool called Twitter Blocks.

The service was started by Obvious Corp, who also started Odeo.

In April 2008 Twitter launched Twitter Japan in partnership with Digital Garage.

Milestones

  • 6/23/08 — Hires Rudy Winnacker and John Adams, two new Operation Engineers
  • 6/9/08 — Survives iPhone 3G Stevenote
  • 6/9/08 — Twitter partners with Summize to cover Apple news.
  • 5/28/08 — Launches a status blog to communicate to users better about issues with the service.
  • 5/7/08 — Twitter Starts Blacklisting Spammers
  • 4/24/08 — VP Lee Mighdoll Leaves Twitter
  • 4/23/08 — Chief Architect Blaine Cook Leaves Twitter
  • 4/22/08 — Twitter Japan Launches
  • 4/16/08 — Twitter helps bust American man out of Egyptian jail
  • 7/15/06 — Twitter Launches

Videos

Products

Twicco

Websitetwicco.jp
Blogtwitter.com/blog
StageLive
Launch DateNovember 4, 2008

Twicco.jp is a group and community feature for Twitter (currently available only in Japan). In Loic Le Meur’s demo video you can see it lets users create and follow a group instead of an individual account. Twitter Japan, a joint venture with Digital Garage, was already differentiating itself from the US version with ads in the feeds and therefor a monetization option right from the beginning.

Twitter screenshot
Above: Twicco Homepage
Uploaded: 11/5/08

Videos

Above:

Loic Le Meur demo’s Twicco

Twitter

Websitetwitter.com
Blogtwitter.com/blog
StageLive
Launch DateMarch 1, 2006
Tags twitter, communication, text, messages, microblogging

Twitter allows users to post text updates via SMS, instant messaging, email, Twitter’s website and third party applications. Users have their own profile page that displays their latest updates. In addition, users can become “friends” with one another, or simply be a “follower.” Other than reading another person’s profile page, a user can also receive others’ updates through text messages, RSS or third party applications.

Twitter itself is a free service, though users may have to pay text messaging charges to the phone carriers.

Twitter screenshot
Above: Twitter Screenshot -- #1
Uploaded: 2/5/08
Twitter screenshot
Above: Twitter Screenshot -- #2
Uploaded: 2/5/08

Twitter Blocks

Websitetwitter.com
Blogblog.twitter.com
Tags socialnetworking

Twitter Blocks is a real-time visualization tool for recent updates from a user’s friends and their friends’ network of friends (and their friends’ friends’ network of friends, etc.).

Twitter screenshot
Above: Twitter Blocks Screenshot -- #1
Uploaded: 2/5/08

Traffic Analytics

Quantcast

Livegraph

Compete

Twitter

Comments

greggace - December 29, 2008 at 11:01am
twitter allows us to peruse people's personal urls, & biz models, search learn and discover
dupola - December 9, 2008 at 1:55pm
I love Twitter. I am building a service base on Twitter. Wait for me..........Yeah!
Twitter Fans - November 11, 2008 at 1:24pm
Die hard fans of twitter.
Austin Texas Notary Public - November 7, 2008 at 2:43am
Seriously who doesn't love little Twitter!
Ben Walker - November 5, 2008 at 1:47pm
Twitter is an amazing service with an amazing following. It should be interesting to see how they monetize their service. Follow me in my name! or @ bensir
pwincesshannah - October 16, 2008 at 6:16am
i absaloutley love twitter but i need some followers please follow me or at least check it out thanks
Brian - October 9, 2008 at 9:27am
I always get random request to follow my twitter comments from people I don't know. Are these hackers trying to get into my account?
bobbiedawn - July 23, 2008 at 11:52am
DELL--I am unable to register my extended warrentee
Bobbiedawn - July 23, 2008 at 11:51am
Can't get on twitter-registered now told my email is taken. HELP!!!
Tony Kuhl - July 22, 2008 at 2:29pm
I bought a stereo from these people they shipped a different name brand I shipped it back for a refund, still no refund since Oct. They will not let you talk to a manager
Chris Marshall - July 6, 2008 at 4:40pm
Biz Stone recently indicated that 'commercial accounts' was one idea that may fund Twitter in the future.
someguy - June 26, 2008 at 9:33pm
they don't have plans for revenue generation yet. they tried ads on japanese twitter.
Fred Campbell - June 12, 2008 at 9:26am
I think it's a great idea. Blogging is huge, Facebook is enormous - but they have a real unique appeal with this. Everyone likes to broadcast, but many don't have the time - I think their business model is 'the lazy person's blog.' The lazy way always wins.
kk - June 8, 2008 at 7:26pm
they probably r just waiting for the right time.
Sean Harry - May 13, 2008 at 3:01pm
So how do they make money???
Charlie Salem - April 11, 2008 at 2:54am
Could someone PLEASE tell me what their bussness model is. Maybe i'm stupid but i just don't understand Are theey do a skype and / or marking up on the sms message costs to opertors in return for driving draffic OR just buying a bult number of mails and running themselves as a micro opperator? Please send any thought dorectly to me at charlie12@totalise.co.uk and relieve me of these sleepless agony!!!! Have a nice weekend. By the way - CRUNCHBASE RULES!!!! it's a brilliant site / service C
Pieter - March 17, 2008 at 1:50pm
What is their business model anyway? They don't display ads on their site...
Luixx - January 3, 2008 at 1:36am
with so much noise about instant messaging this business model will be expanding in the coming months. If Google adquired Jaiku it must worth it!
thaumata - November 5, 2007 at 1:07am
After being dragged to twitter by friends, I have to say that while the concept is good (nice to be able to SMS internet friends without giving out your mobile number) the performance is DISMAL. I get an error about every three page views and frequently get my tweets three hours late. When someone makes a more reliable product, twitter will probably lose people in droves. I know many already going over to pownce and jaiku for this reason alone.
Evorgleb - October 10, 2007 at 2:05pm
Great service for updating a user's status or "mini-blogging". However I question how much inovation can be done in the area.

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Sources

  1. Values of n Blog (valuesofn.com) [edit]
  2. Confirmed: Twitter Acquires Summize Search Engine (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  3. More Information On That Secretive Twitter Financing (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  4. Twitter Announces Their Funding, Calls Itself A Communication Utility (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  5. Introducing John Adams and Rudy (blog.twitter.com) [edit]
  6. Twitter Fails To Fail, Community Rejoices (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  7. Twitter Partners With Summize to Cover Apple News (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  8. What's Going On? (blog.twitter.com) [edit]
  9. Twitter Starts Blacklisting Spammers (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  10. VP Lee Mighdoll Out At Twitter, Business Plan Still MIA (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  11. Amateur Hour Over At Twitter? (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  12. Twitter! Japan! Ads! (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  13. Twitter Saves Man From Egyptian Justice (techcrunch.com) [edit]
  14. Odeo Releases Twttr (techcrunch.com) [edit]
Edit This Page (Revision History)
Last Edited 12/31/08

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