9781422277324

Tech 2.0

text messages. Dorsey wasted no time pitching his new idea to his new employer, Odeo. One former executive recounted the ex- perience: “He came to us with this idea: ‘What if you could share your status with all your friends really easily, so they know what you’re doing?’” Odeo was interested in his idea for Twitter, which he referred to as “twttr” when the project first began. The short name, which is credited to Odeo colleague Noah Glass, came from the trend at the time to keep abbreviations short. When us- ers received a text from Twitter, it would be distributed from the abbreviation twttr, and the SMS code 40404. Developers of the website hoped the code would be easy for users to memorize and recognize. Jack received help for his newproject fromBiz Stone, Odeo’s creative director, and another contractor named Florian Weber. All three were very talented programmers, and they were able to build the first version of Twitter within two weeks. On March 21, 2006, Jack sent out his first Twitter update (an update wasn’t called a “tweet” until 2007). It said, “just setting up my twttr.” Only Odeo employees used the first version of Twitter, as it was not ready to be shared with the world. The developers of Twitter spent a lot of money testing the functionality of the website. Having an unlimited text-message planwas almost unheard of at the time, so theywere forced to pay for each individual text message that was sent or received during testing. They racked up thousands of dollars in SMS charges to

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