March 21, 2006
Twitter launches
Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet on March 21, 2006 — launching Twitter as a microblogging service built in RubyA dynamic language emphasizing developer happiness — Rails made it the default for web startups in the 2000s. on Rails.
What it was for
Twitter's 140-character posts and public APIApplication programming interface — a defined way for programs to talk to each other or to a service. shaped real-time web culture — hashtags, @mentions, and firehoses influenced every social feed and many developer tools. Its Rails origin story became legendary in startup engineering circles.
People
- Jack Dorsey — co founder
Why it's here
Twitter defined microblogging and real-time public messaging.
Why it mattered
Its APIApplication programming interface — a defined way for programs to talk to each other or to a service. ecosystem taught a generation of developers about social graph integrations.
What it solved
Blogging was too heavy for short status updates between friends and colleagues.
Media
- ImageX (social network)
X Corp., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Related
- Ruby on Rails open sourcedJuly 24, 2004
- Ruby 0.95 publicly releasedDecember 21, 1995
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporate GoogleSeptember 4, 1998