Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution: Communication, Connections, and Immediacy—140 Characters at a Time

22 : Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution

The State of

Micro-Messaging

It’s been around for just two and a half years, but micro-

messaging is growing quickly and changing fast. In this

section, we’ll look at its roots, significant developments

and recent trends.

A Micro-History of the Medium

To understand the roots of micro-messaging, you need

to know that instant message systems like AOL Instant

Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger generally have a

customizable “away message.” The away message lets

users type in a short, public note that explains why

they’re unavailable for chatting. Early in this century, it

was common for people—students in particular—to use

that message space as its own means of communica-

tion, changing it constantly and keeping up with other

people’s changes, too.

In 2003, The New York Times wrote a feature story on

the trend, noting, “They post a little of everything: news,

quotes, schedules, song lyrics, birthday greetings, party

invitations, jokes, veiled insults, confessions, exclama-

tions, complaints. The messages may be meaningful to

everybody, somebody or nobody” (http://www.nytimes.

com/2003/03/20/technology/circuits/20away.html). If

that sounds a lot like the way people use Twitter, it’s no

accident: Jack Dorsey, the Odeo engineer who created

Twitter,

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was inspired in part by away messages.

Right around the time Twitter launched, Facebook

added Status Updates, ...