Did you know it was exactly five years ago today that Jack Dorsey and a few other team members working at Odeo first started to work on what would become Twitter? How do I know? Dorsey is tweeting about it right now.
While programming began five years ago, it wasn’t until eight days later, on March 21, 2006, that Dorsey sent the famous first (non-automated) tweet: “inviting coworkers”.
Dorsey also notes that it was exactly five years ago that they got the official go ahead on the Twitter idea, then called “twttr“. He has also shared (via his Tumblr) the conversation he had with Biz Stone about the project on that day. The first mention:
me: Biz! How goes? We’re starting work on the twttr implementation today.
Biz: really?! NICE
Dorsey also reveals that the reason they initially droped the vowels out of “Twitter” was to try and get the SMS shortcode. …But Teen People already owned it.
Dorsey promises to share more of his original drawings, emails, and notes about the early days of Twitter. Naturally, he’s going to share them on Twitter.