Wah Glossary

Twitter

URL	http://www.twitter.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Micro-blogging
Registration	required
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Twitter, Inc.
Created by	Obvious, LLC^[1]
Launched	July 13, 2006

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an application such as Twitterrific. Twitter was founded in March 2006 by San Francisco start-up company Obvious Corp.

Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application. For SMS, currently three gateway numbers are available: short codes for the USA and Canada and a UK number for international use. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email.

Due to Twitter’s success, a large number of sites imitating its concept have sprung up around the world, offering country-specific services (e.g., frazr) or combining the micro-blogging facilities with other ideas, such as filesharing (e.g., Pownce). In May 2007, one source counted as many as 111 such “Twitter-lookalikes” internationally.^[2]

Twitter is not just for fun and games, however. Many organizations have embraced the technology and put it to use in life or death situations such as the October 2007 California wildfires. The Los Angeles Fire Department makes Twitter a means of communications^[3]

Visitors to the Twitter website have peaked at nearly 500,000 in July 2007 and have leveled off to that rate in the ending months of 2007.^{[citation needed]}

1 Opposition
2 Trivia
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

Opposition

With Twitter growing in size there are new challenges that the company faces. The most recent of these, confirmed by Twitter^[4] comes from T-Mobile who began filtering their customer’s SMS messages that were sent to 40404 (The SMS short code for Twitter). ^[5]^[6]^[7]

Trivia

Twitter began as a research and development project inside Odeo, Inc. by Noah Glass and Jack Dorsey, and debuted in March 2006. The Twitter team won the 2007 South by Southwest Web Award in the blog category.^[8] Dorsey gave the following playful acceptance speech: “We’d like to thank you in 140 characters or less. And we just did!”

Twitter is experiencing numerous challenges related to its growing user base. The Wall Street Journal wrote, “These social-networking services elicit mixed feelings in the technology-savvy people who have been their early adopters. Fans say they are a good way to keep in touch with busy friends. But some users are starting to feel ‘too’ connected, as they grapple with check-in messages at odd hours, higher cellphone bills and the need to tell acquaintances to stop announcing what they’re having for dinner.”^[9]

Prominent Twitter users include US presidential candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama^[10] and author and journalist Anna David.^[11]

The first Twitter security vulnerability was reported on April 7, 2007 by Nitesh Dhanjani. The problem was due to Twitter using the SMS message originator as the authentication of the user’s account. Nitesh used fakemytext.com to spoof a text message, whereupon Twitter posted the message on the victim’s page. This vulnerability can only be used if the victim’s phone number is known.^[12] Within a few weeks of this discovery, Twitter introduced an optional PIN that its users can specify to authenticate SMS-originating messages.

Twitter is written in Ruby on Rails.^[13]

References

^ “Incorporating Twitter” March 18th, 2007 Twitter Official Blog, retrieved May 29th, 2007
^ Article on thws.cn. A Chinese site, but the article is in English. Retrieved August 22nd, 2007.
^ http://twitter.com/LAFD LAFD on Twitter
^ http://getsatisfaction.com/tmobile/topics/t_mobile_shuts_down_twitter_service_for_good Biz Stone Confirms T-Mobile’s actions
^ http://alternageek.com/hosts/linuxchic/t-mobile-blocks-twitter/ T-Mobile Blocks Twitter
^ http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=2877 ZD Net Blog
^ http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9834467-7.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=NewsBlog
^ “We Won!” March 14th, 2007 Twitter Official Blog, retrieved March 16th, 2007
^ “Friends Swap Twitters, and Frustration - New Real-Time Messaging Services Overwhelm Some Users With Mundane Updates From Friends” March 16th, 2007 Wall Street Journal, retrieved March 16th, 2007
^ Barack Obama on Twitter Official Twitter Page
^ Anna David on Twitter Official Twitter Page
^ Twitter and Jott Vulnerable to SMS and Caller ID Spoofing April 7, 2007: Nitesh Dhanjani Blog Entry
^ 5 Question Interview with Twitter Developer Alex Payne March 29, 2007