A 7 letter word for napkin that starts with "tw'"
It may look like just another doodle by a bored meeting attendee. And it might be on a legal pad rather than on the proverbial back of a napkin, but the picture above is a bona fide piece of Web 2.0 history -- or maybe I should say twistory (not to be confused with Twistori.)
Just as Twitter is seemingly crossing the chasm, if mainstream media coverage is any indication, co-founder Jack Dorsey has posted an early sketch of what was to eventually (more than six years later) become the powder blue standard for presence applications.
Dorsey accompanies his photo with what appears to be his pre-launch musings about the origins of his micro-baby:
"On May 31st, 2000, I signed up with a new service called LiveJournal. I was user 4,136 which entitled me a permanent account and street cred in some alternate geeky universe which I have not yet visited. I was living in the Sunshine Biscuit Factory in Oakland California and starting a company to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the web.
One night in July of that year I had an idea to make a more 'live' LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. Akin to updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it. For the next 5 years, I thought about this concept and tried to silently introduce it into my various projects. It slipped into my dispatch work. It slipped into my networks of medical devices. It slipped into an idea for a frictionless service market. It was everywhere I looked: a wonderful abstraction which was easy to implement and understand.
The 6th year; the idea has finally solidified (thanks to the massively creative environment my employer Odeo provides) and taken a novel form. We're calling it twttr (though this original rendering calls it stat.us; I love the word.ed domains, e.g. gu.st). It's evolved a lot in the past few months. From an excited discussion and persuasion on the South Park playground to a recently approved application for a SMS shortcode. I'm happy this idea has taken root; I hope it thrives.
Some things are worth the wait."
While Twitter still has plenty of room to grow, it's certainly interesting to get a peek into where, why and how it got its start.
