Today marks the 6th birthday of Twitter — the now ubiquitous collaboration platform where people share 140 characters of information. It was on On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey (@jack) sent the first Tweet.
I remember when I first got on Twitter 23,476 tweets ago… I didn’t get it. And while many of us are tweeting, I’m not sure we fully get it.
Some numbers — these are from the Twitter blog last year and I’m sure some of the numbers have changed, but… they are remarkable regardless:
#tweets
- 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.
- 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.
- 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.
- 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.
- 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
- 456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).
- 6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.
#accounts
- 572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.
- 460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.
- 182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.
#employees
- 8. 29. 130. 350. 400. Number of Twitter employees in Jan 2008, Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011 and today.
And government has also jumped onto Twitter.
The question: How has Twitter changed government? governing? management? technology? policies?
Meanwhile, some resources:
GovLoop has had scores of posts about Twitter.
Some of the more popular:
GovLoop: 15 Commandments for Gov’t Agencies on Twitter
GovLoop member Alain Lemay: Who not to follow on Twitter! – A guide for public sector employees
Also: New Twitter Guides for Government Agencies and Employees
GovLoop also has a Government-Related Twitter Hashtags Directory
Any idea why new members and tweets were so high the 11th and 12th?
I think they were just looking at those dates as points in time. I’m guessing it isn’t significantly different from day to day.
Updated numbers, Mashable connects to the Twitter blog:
“At last check, there are more than 140 million active users (there’s that number again) — and today we see 340 million Tweets a day. That’s more than 1 billion every 3 days.”
HT: Mashable: Twitter Says It Has 140 Million Users
I can’t speak on behalf of “the government” or “management” but from a personal perspective, I have found twitter to be indispensable in helping me to distill and process the vast amount of information that is being disseminated on the web. I follow about 100 organizations and people who I value and I have become an addicted user. I can’t believe those who stil haven’t caught on to the value of Twitter. For information junkies like me, it’s the most important tool for the knowledge worker.
Interesting findings from Government Technology: 32 percent of GovTech survey respondents say they think social media and social networks are of limited usefulness or no value in their government workplace.
Social Media Still Has Skeptics in Government
Succinct information that is timely and useful. Immediate gratification.
No! I dont use it. A waste of time, money
I’m much more dependable and trusting than ANY newfangled electronic procedure/gadget.
I think Twitter’s best for egotistical, totally self-absorbed. “Las Vegas/Hollywood-style” people seeking glamour and their names up on big neon signs, for all to see.
Twitter, possibly more than any other social tool (beyond GovLoop), has exponentially expanded my professional network. Hugely impactful.