Happy seventh birthday, Twitter!

Micro-blogging website Twitter has turned seven amidst much pomp and celebration by the company. From being a simple diary like site to being a tool in Presidential campaigns, little “Twttr”, as it was known before, has come a long way.

To commemorate its seventh birthday, Twitter put out a video that runs you through some of its biggest achievements. The video highlights all the major world events post 2006 where Twitter has played a huge role in. Whether it was the Tahrir Square protests or the Japanese Earthquake rescue operations, Twitter played an active part to change the course of history, as we know it.

Happy birthday, Twitter!

We would’ve found it hard to believe in 2006 if we were told that a website that allowed you to write merely 140 characters at a time would be a major part of our lives. “Individuals and organisations from worlds as diverse as fashion, football, politics and pop music have embraced Twitter over the past seven years and made it their own, 140 characters at a time,” Twitter wrote in the blog on its birthday.

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Twitter believes – and we concur – that the site has truly become a global town square. It is a public place where you read news, not just as an article, but unfolding every single second via live tweets. The website has indeed been a tool in the hands of the masses to connect with each other.

Here in India, we only need to go a year back to see how important Twitter has been as a connecting tool. During the various incidences, including blasts and bandhs that have paralysed cities in the country, Twitter has come to the rescue with its timely first hand information and help.

On its seventh birthday, Twitter has claimed that the site sees 200 million active users sending out 400 million tweets each day. A place where celebrities connected with their fans and even the Pope addressed the masses, Twitter has indeed been the place to be at.

Even seven years later, there is no stopping this social networking website. Days before its birthday, it was revealed that the site received a patent for itself. Within the patent, Twitter is sketched as a system and method that is “configured to receive a message addressed to one or more destination users.” Essentially, the patent lists down a service in which users follow each other and messages broadcast don’t have specific recipients. These messages are displayed to the followers.

Twitter has vowed to use this patent only defensively against services that look like they possibly infringe on the service. The Innovator’s Patent Agreement introduced by Twitter last year says that the site had a contract with its employees and that the latter would need to grant permission before the company ever needed to sue offensively.

With the company rumoured to go public this year with a new IPO, we cannot wait to see what one of the world’s most used social networking website has in store for the next seven years!