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web services A brief history of
Microblogging X December 13, 2007 X Twitter and its competitors Hashtags July 2, 2008 have spawned an entire ecosystem Hashtags tracks the use of hash Identi.ca marks, a way to label posts by topic; The open-source service the system helped people follow Identi.ca launches, hop- Microblogging services—which let subscribers post the progress of the San Diego fires ing to spark a collection of interoperable sites short personal updates online or broadcast them as text that offer microblogging messages—have inspired a slew of ancillary services. Clients are desktop or mobile-device applications that X access microblogs’ content. Toys are sites that present April 11, 2008 the content in new ways, often combined with other data. Summize After testing its real-time search Accessories meet needs specific to microbloggers—such as tools on several Web services, a way to shorten URLs so that they fit inside status updates. X Summize announces that it will October 1, 2007 focus on Twitter This time line of service launch dates provides a snapshot FriendFeed FriendFeed combines of the whole ecosystem. —Erica Naone posts from multiple ser- vices, letting people read X and comment on them February 28, 2008 X without having to join the LinkedIn launches status X services updates March 18, 2007 Twittervision X This early Twitter toy set March 1, 2006 the tone for later: mes- X Facebook launches sages from Twitter pop up July 12, 2007 status updates on a map of the world and MySpace launches X fade as quickly as they status updates November 12, 2007 appear Twhirl X Built using Adobe’s AIR technology, july 13, 2006 Twhirl allows users to post to sev- Twitter X The first major July 17, 2007 eral microblogging services at once Twitter microblogging service for iPhone launches Ping.fm TweetWheel ceTwit Twitteroo TwitDir Tweet Scan Twerp Scan Launch Jaiku Twitterrific Pownce Seesmic Twistori date Twitterfox Twitxr 7/07 7/06 1/07 2/07 3/07 4/07 5/07 6/07 8/07 9/07 7/08 4/06 5/06 6/06 8/06 9/06 1/08 2/08 3/08 4/08 5/08 6/08 3/06 10/07 11/07 12/07 10/06 11/06 12/06
X X April 23, 2008 October 9, 2007 System architect Blaine Google purchases Jaiku X April 4, 2008 Cook leaves Twitter, which but leaves it to languish; Seesmic buys Twhirl, has had trouble meeting its plans for the service touting the client’s abil- escalating demand but has remain unclear ity to make posting easy begun to rebuild its infra- in all media, across plat- structure formsX
July 14, 2008 X X Twitter buys Summize; third- October 22, 2007 X April 10, 2008 party sites struggle as Twitter, Toys During the San Diego fires, A Berkeley student uses trying to keep its servers from Clients people use Twitter to update Twitter to get help when overloading, keeps chang- Accessories friends and family on the situa- arrested by Egyptian police ing the rules for accessing Services tion and their whereabouts its data Acquisitions/events
26 forward technology review september/ october 2008