Amazing People and Events: Jack Dorsey: The Brains behind Twitter

Original Sketches for Twitter

I wonder how many internet users out there have Twitter accounts. According to Mark Evans, in a 2010 study of Sysomos, an online company that provide social media analytics, Twitter receives 50 millions tweets per day and the number is growing significantly. In June of 2010, Twitter records show about 65 million tweets per day. I believe it is safe to assume that the number has grown even dramatically after a year. I will not be surprised if the number rises to as much as 70 million tweets per day but that is only a personal and an unscientific assumption. As of April 2010, Twitter has 105,779,710 registered users

In a related study by Sysomos, among 13 million unique Twitter accounts, US has 50 percent share. On number two is Brazil with 8.79%, UK on third with 7.20% and Canada on fourth slot with 4.35%. Philippines is on 12^th spot with 1.08 percent share.

Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey, an American software architect and businessperson, has created Twitter. Technology Review has dubbed him as an outstanding innovator below the age of 35.

While sitting on a park’s children slide and munching Mexican food, Dorsey thought of the possibility of a person using short messaging service to communicate to a small group. He worked to develop the project prototype with Biz Stone and they finished it in 2 weeks. Evan Williams co-founded the company along with Dorsey and Stone and served as its CEO until October 2010.

According to Dorsey, Twitter means “short burst of inconsequential information” and “chirp from birds”.

While Twitter has grown to be one of the most effective social media for marketing strategy, Dorsey has not designed it to earn. In fact, Dorsey puts more emphasis on improving upload speed than financial benefit. His three guiding principles are simplicity, constraint and craftsmanship. Although he expects the commercial use of Twitter like paid tweets or sponsored tweets along with its API’s could generate paid features.

Jack Dorsey goes up to the exclusive list of Amazing People.

Below is a Vimeo Video by Biz Stone about Twitter presentation by Jack Dorsey 3 years ago. Worth watching.