Twitter marks birthday with top tweets

Social media giant Twitter celebrates its ninth birthday today, and to mark the occasion the site has been recalling some of the biggest posts from its history.

The very first tweet came from co-founder Jack Dorsey, back when the service did not use vowels in its official name — “Just setting up my twttr”, he wrote on March 21, 2006.

Since then, the site has amassed 288m monthly active users while 500m tweets are sent per day.

The concepts of trending, hashtags, and ‘@ing’ someone have all become part of the online lexicon since 2006.

Breaking news has been a large part of Twitter’s usage for some years now, with the 2008 news that the Mars Phoenix Lander had discovered ice on Mars being tweeted by Nasa as their way of revealing the find: “Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!”

The US Airways flight that was forced to make an emergency landing on the Hudson river in New York in 2009 was also first reported on Twitter, with images of passengers on life rafts and standing on the wings of the plane being retweeted by thousands. Janis Krums (@jkrums) tweeted: “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”

Barack Obama used the site to confirm his second term as US president even before appearing publicly; tweeting a photo of he and wife Michelle hugging, with the caption “Four more years” after a successful election campaign in 2012.

That image was the most retweeted in Twitter’s history until last year, when Ellen DeGeneres’s Oscar selfie with stars including Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Kevin Spacey was posted during the awards ceremony.

Her account @TheEllenShow tweeted: “If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever.” The tweet and accompanying picture has been retweeted more than 4m times since then.

Ellen DeGeneres tweeted this group selfie from last year’s Oscars. 

The site has also been the source of entire movements; an image of the phrase ‘Je Suis Charlie’ as the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris unfolded earlier this year became the rallying cry for free speech at marches after the event.

Twitter has also had a significant impact on social dialogue in Ireland.

Fans flocked to the social network to discuss the gruesome episode of Love/Hate last October which (spoiler alert!) saw a child being shot, Pauley being pushed off a roof by Siobhán, and Patrick slitting a man’s throat.

One of the most retweeted images by an Irish user was coincidentally posted at around this time last year as Ireland won in Paris to claim the Six Nations, a trophy we will be hoping to retain in Edinburgh this afternoon. On March 15, 2014, Brian O’Driscoll shared the iconic image of the last time he hung up his number 13 jersey and boots and bid his final goodbye to Irish rugby. He tweeted: “Phew! Worked out ok! Thanks for all the messages of support. Unreal feeling. Not easy taking this off for last time.”

Phew! Worked out ok! Thanks for all the messages of support. Unreal feeling. Not easy taking this off for last time pic.twitter.com/Sq89BdLOnw

— Brian O'Driscoll (@BrianODriscoll) March 15, 2014

On March 15 last year, Brian O’Driscoll hung up his Irish jersey — and boots — for the final time, tweeting a picture after Ireland won the Six

Nations. 

The message peaked at more than 39,000 retweets.

Twitter still has significantly fewer users than Facebook, with the social network co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg boasting more than 1.3bn users worldwide. Twitter has been taking steps to try and improve user engagement in recent months, including attempting to tighten up the systems for reporting abuse as well as adding content to timelines that users do not already follow.

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