Ever wonder about the early days of Twitter? Long before @Oprah and @aplusk, many social media and technology early adopters hopped on board helping to spur the service forward. If you’ve ever wanted to do an historical study of Twitter, then I’ve got three services that will give you a snapshot of what it was like when you, or anyone else, were mere Twitter Hatchlings.
When Did You Join Twitter tells you just that. Nothing fancy. But it’s fascinating to see what dates some of the old school social media types joined. It appears October 24, 2006 is a landmark date for Twitter, attracting these early adopter hatchlings: @ChrisBrogan, @newmediajim (Jim Long), @BobGoyetche, @Julien (Julien Smith) and @jmoonah (Jay Moonah).
This sets up some interesting trivia:
- Bob Goyetche and Julien Smith were 2 of the very first podcasters in Canada, and both live in Montreal (like me).
- Bob Goyetche co-founded the PodCasters Across Borders conference, while Chris Brogan co-founded PodCamp. Jay Moonah co-founded PodCamp Toronto and was also an early podcaster.
- Chris Brogan and Julien Smith have gone on to write a book together.
- Both Bob Goyetche and Jim Long have said that they heard about Twitter from Chris Brogan. Jay Moonah said he got an invite from someone at the very first PodCamp in Boston, possibly Chris.
Looking at these early adopters started me thinking about how things go viral. What happened on October 24, 2006 for so many to join the fledgling service? Could Brogan be Patient Zero in the Twitter-gone-viral scenario?
It’s interesting to note that @Scobleizer (Robert Scoble) joined almost a month later than this bunch did, on November 20, 2006.
I’ve always known that I joined April 27, 2007 (Happy 2nd Twitterversary to me!) But it was fun to see that my friend, micro-sharing for business expert @Pistachio (Laura Fitton) joined the same month, on April 5, 2007.
My First Follow is another great Twitter app from @dacort (Damon Cortesi), who built three of my favouites, DM Whacker, TweetStats and TweepSearch. My First Follow tells you the first 10 people you followed (provided you’re still following them).
My first 10 Twitter follows were:
@julien, @davidusher, @acrossthesound, @jaffejuice, @mynameiskate, @Scobleizer, @socialmediaclub, @shel, @steverubel and @shelisrael.
MyFirstTweet resurrects your long lost first words on Twitter. But, sadly, the service is a little unreliable. Good thing I took a screen shot of mine ages ago.
Use When Did You Join Twitter , My First Follow and MyFirstTweet to do your own historical research of when you too were just a Twitter hatchling.
And if you know who is Twitter Patient Zero, or why so many joined on October 24, 2006, please, let me know!
UPDATE 05/05/09: Thanks to Jay Moonah for providing some additional background information:
Your post got me interested so I dug into my old email file — it appears I got Twitter invites from Chris Brogan and Beth Kanter (http://twitter.com/kanter) on the auspicious date, both of whom I did indeed meet at Podcamp Boston, and both of whom have many thousands of followers more than me… not that I’m bitter.
Anyway, I suspect most of the folks you named here also got invited by someone they met at the first Podcamp.
Part of message Chris wrote made me laugh reading it now: “Not exactly spam, but I just wanted to try and add you to my twitter account (which is this um.. I don’t know.. the guys from Odeo made it).“
11 responses so far ↓
1 Erica OGrady // May 4, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Adele,
This was such a fun treat. Thanks for such an interactive and well researched post!
Hugs,
-E
2 Annie // May 4, 2009 at 6:46 pm
It’s fun to think back on the old days, when we could actually read the public timeline (I don’t think there even is a public timeline anymore!)
I joined in March 7, 2007 (but not with my current main account.) Right in time for that first sxsw bump!
3 Adele McAlear // May 5, 2009 at 6:45 am
Erica – Thank you so much for coming by! I’m glad you had fun with it
Annie – Ah the old days of Twitter. Remember when you could go to a person’s page and see their timeline? It’s amazing how much has changed in two-and-a-half years.
4 Jay Moonah from Wild Apricot // May 5, 2009 at 9:08 am
Your post got me interested so I dug into my old email file — it appears I got Twitter invites from Chris Brogan and Beth Kanter (http://twitter.com/kanter) on the auspicious date, both of whom I did indeed meet at Podcamp Boston, and both of whom have many thousands of followers more than me… not that I’m bitter.
Anyway, I suspect most of the folks you named here also got invited by someone they met at the first Podcamp.
Part of message Chris wrote made me laugh reading it now: “Not exactly spam, but I just wanted to try and add you to my twitter account (which is this um.. I don’t know.. the guys from Odeo made it). “
5 Adele McAlear // May 5, 2009 at 9:42 am
Jay – thank you so much for adding that extra information to the background on this post. That’s really great to see how Twitter was still the great unknown. I’m glad to see that Beth Kanter was one of the earliest users. Her work with using Twitter for non-proft fundraising has been seminal.
6 Twitter Hatchlings and History | Pistachio // May 8, 2009 at 10:19 am
[...] post originally appeared on Adele McAlear’s blog and has been published to the Touchbase Blog with [...]
7 The Sharper Image Review // Jun 15, 2009 at 10:15 am
Awww, did you have to give backlinks to oprah and aplusk? at least nofollow them as a protest.
One almost forgets Twitter is not even 3 years old. Nice “historical” piece.
8 The Evolution of Twitter: A Look Back At The Real-Time Killer App | How To Create Markets With Technology // Oct 14, 2009 at 6:33 pm
[...] you and would love to hear about your own milestones whatever these maybe. It is interesting to read these milestones from the users perspective so that you can get a better feel of what people are doing and what they are looking for on [...]
9 Brian Rendel // Nov 12, 2009 at 9:37 am
Ah, the early adopter club – where our memory lane becomes someone else’s road to the future.
Here’s to blazing more of the past in the years to come – together. Cheers, Adele!
10 Twitter Milestone: 10 Billionth Tweet // Mar 5, 2010 at 9:15 am
[...] since the start, for those of us who’ve been around Twitter for a while, and those who’ve built businesses on and around [...]
11 Twitter Milestone: 10 Billionth Tweet | characters of oneforty // Jul 2, 2010 at 10:09 am
[...] since the start, for those of us who’ve been around Twitter for a while, and those who’ve built businesses on and around the [...]
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