Twitter, that ubiquitous little collection of emotional grunts and other 140 character ramblings, is turning 3 years old today at 1:02 PM California time. Founding CEO Jack Dorsey Twittered earlier today linking back to one of the first Twitter messages (here’s one before that one), which read “inviting coworkers.”

The news about Twitter didn’t break until July 2006, when it was (jokingly I later learned) called twttr (and that’s the logo that they first used, above). I love reading our first post on the service, which I described as “a sort of “group send” SMS application. Each person controls their own network of friends.” I gave it a thumbs up for “for innovation and good execution on a simple but viral idea” but questioned why Odeo, a podcasting company, was wasting time on side projects. The comments to that post are pretty entertaining as well. See what my friend Om Malik had to say about them that day as well.

Fast forward to today and you have a startup that survived serious scaling issues and is getting serious mainstream attention. Facebook is obsessed with the young company, as are many others. Happy Birthday, Twttr.