Twitter Comes of Age as Fifth Birthday Approaches

The 21st March 2011 will mark 5 years since the very first tweet was sent by Jack Dorsey as a small team of workers launched a prototype that we now know as Twitter.

Today, courtesy of some interesting numbers released on the Twitter blog, we can see the impact that the social platform is having on communications.

Some Vital Statistics

In the immediate aftermath and as the crisis continued in Japan, Twitter recorded 572,000 new accounts opened on 12 March 2011. It is thought that many turned to social networks as other means of communication, particularly mobiles, suffered in light of the horrific devastation.

It is also worth noting that it now takes roughly a week for one billion tweets to be sent – it took Twitter three years, two months and a day to reach the first billion tweets; staggering growth indeed.

Other statistics worthy of mention include 140 million tweets sent by people last month on average, up by 90 million from the same period a year ago. On 11 March 2011, the day that the earthquake hit Japan, 177 million tweets were sent.

As the fifth birthday approaches for Twitter, its position and impact on the social sphere and in everyday life is growing.