Today, Twitter turns eight years old. Unlike my eighth birthday, no dinosaurs were involved. Instead, Twitter is celebrating by showing us our very first tweets (see your own here.)
We’ve come a long way since March 21, 2006 when Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass and Evan Williams all tweeted “just setting up my twttr.” (Fun fact: Dorsey tweeted it first amongst the four founders.)
Twitter has changed our lives for the better. It’s a platform for social change, a medium to accelerate the speed of information and my morning news feed that helps me catch up on what I’ve missed for the past seven hours. It helps us make informed decisions and enables anybody to connect with their local politician, their favorite athlete or a local business. It’s also changed journalism- reporters use it to get sources, share their articles, and break stories before their competitors.
To celebrate Twitter’s anniversary, we thought it could be fun to look at ten of our favorite tech outlets. Who tweeted first? What did they tweet? What reporter embraced Twitter before it became the norm? Here’s what we came up with:
First Reporter
When looking at 100+ of our favorite journalists, Om Malik led the charge. On July 14, 2006, just five months after Twttr’s launch, Om tweeted:
Looking 4 food
— Om Malik (@om) July 15, 2006
First Outlets:
The New York Times and TechCrunch couldn’t be closer. Of the 10 outlets we looked at, the NYT edged out TechCrunch by one day, tweeting on March 5, 2007.
Without Health Benefits, a Good Life Turns Fragile http://shurl.org/bVmbZ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 5, 2007
Blogging! — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) March 7, 2007
The race quickly picked up speed, with WIRED, GigaOM and the Wall Street Journal all sharing their first tweets in the following 26 days:
Wired News: Top Stories: Dems Want Answers, Gonzales http://tinyurl.com/2bkvqu
— WIRED (@WIRED) March 17, 2007
Set, game match: Agassi: Shai Agassi, president of SAPs product and technology group is leaving the compan.. http://tinyurl.com/yrdaf2 — Gigaom (@gigaom) March 29, 2007
Sega, Nintendo to Make Olympics-Themed Game http://tinyurl.com/3xkz6l
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 1, 2007
And we’d be remiss to not share the funnier tweets from some of our favorite journalists. Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal, Arik Hesseldahl from Re/Code and Russell Brandom at The Verge’s stood out:
Sitting on my but — Joanna Stern (@JoannaStern) July 26, 2007
at work. wondering wtf twitter actually is
— Arik Hesseldahl (@ahess247) March 12, 2007
Hello twitter! Does anyone know a good erotic bakery near Union Square? #forafriend — Russell Brandom (@russellbrandom) August 23, 2010
As for some of us at Highwire?
BIG Game today, kids. Let’s do this Ravens.
— Bill Bode (@BodeSF) December 27, 2009
counting down the hours till the inevitable debate: stupid, smelly gym (to get body back) or home (to relax and watch Gossip Girl?) — Lindsey R. Coyle (@LRCoyle) April 29, 2008
Is trying to find an apartment that is just as cool as my current one but doesn’t have skunks living nearby.
— Christine McKeown (@cmckeown) March 18, 2008