Twitter: Fledgling Internet Start-up in 2006, Crucial Real-time Media and Voice of a Generation Today

Twitter icons

 

Fun Facts About Twitter

(accurate as of November 28, 2011)

 

• 

  Twitter creator Jack Dorsey

  Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched in July of that year.

• Twitter’s origins lie in a “day long brainstorming session” that was held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo. While sitting in a park on a children’s slide and eating Mexican food, Dorsey introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group.
• The first Twitter prototype was used as an internal service for Odeo employees and the full version was introduced publicly on July 15, 2006
• The original project code name for the service was ‘twttr‘, an idea that co-Founder Evan Williams later ascribed to Noah Glass, inspired by the name of the social media image website ‘Flickr’ and the five-character length of American SMS short codes.
• Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet on March 21 2006, “just setting up my twttr”.
• The team finally settled on the name ‘twitter‘, which means ‘chirps from birds’ in essence ‘a short burst of inconsequential information’

• 

  (from left to right) Jack Dorsey with Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams

  Twitter was incorporated in April 2007; it was co-founded by Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey – @biz, @ev and @jack.

• It had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007
• The tipping point for Twitter’s popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000.

• The hashtag (#) feature on Twitter which groups tweets by subject debuted in August 2007, proposed by a user.
• In 2008 there were only 3 million registered users
• In 2008 there were only 1.25 million tweets per day
• Jan 2008  there were only 8 employees
• In 2009 Twitter had 8 million registered users
• In October 2009, Google and Microsoft began integrating tweets into their search products.
• In March 2010 the average number of tweets people sent per week was 350 million.
• 25 billion tweets sent on Twitter in 2010
• 100 million new accounts added on Twitter in 2010
• In 2011 there are now over 400 employees and Twitter is adding workers almost weekly.
• As of March 2011, there were an estimated 225 million users

• Twitter has more than 200 million users tweeting more than 140 million tweets a day.
• 75% of Twitter traffic comes from third-party applications
• 60% of all tweets come from third-party apps
• 

  The infamous Twitter "fail whale"

  There are over 100,000 Twitter applications

• Last year alone, Twitter users sent 25 billion tweets and the company added more than 100 million new registered accounts.
• 3 years, 2 months and 1 day…the time it took from the first tweet to the billionth tweet.
• It now takes one week for users to send a billion Tweets.
• 140 million is the average number of tweets people sent per day in February 2011
• 177 million tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
• When Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 there were 456 tweets per second (TPS)…a record at that time.
• The current TPS record is 6,939 tweets per second set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day

• Pop star Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) has the most Twitter followers with 8.78 million followed by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) with 8.13 million, Britney Spears (@britneyspears) with 7.12 million, Barack Obama (@barackobama) with 6.97 million and Kim Kardashian (@kimkardashian) with 6.73 million.

• 

  Actor Charlie Sheen

  Actor Charlie Sheen (@charliesheen) was the fastest to one million followers, picking them up in just 1 day.

• Twitter is based in San Francisco, with additional employees in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington.

• The initial Twitter logo was created by Stone, a former graphic designer.
• A Forrester report revealed  that “Twitterers are the connected of the connected, overindexing at all Social Media habits.  For example, Twitterers are three times more likely to be Creators (people who create and share content via blog posts and YouTube) as the general US population” (source Forrester report “Who Flocks to Twitter”)
• 572,000 is the number of new accounts created in one day (March 12, 2011)
• 460,000 is the average number of new accounts per day created in February, 2011
• 182% is the increase in number of mobile users over the past year.
• The first unassisted off-Earth Twitter message was posted from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut T. J. Creamer on January 22, 2010

 

Special thanks to smedio.com and jeffbullas.com

Donuts: International sweet treats and a multi-billion-dollar industry

 Fun Facts About Donuts

Although controversial, who traditionally is known for importing doughnuts to America, around 1847? 

Dutch settlers. The donut (or “doughnut”) is a deep-fried piece of dough or batter. It comes from the Dutch origin of olykoeck or “oily cake”. The two most common types of donuts are the flattened sphere (you know…the ones that are injected with jelly or custard) and the ring donut.

Which company is the world’s largest coffee and baked goods chain?

Dunkin’ Donuts. Internationally, Dunkin’ Donuts has over 1700 locations in 29 countries and over 6,000 stores in 30 countries world-wide! In the U.S. there are over 4,400 locations across 36 states.

Which company, founded in 1937 proudly boasts the slogan, “Hot Original Glazed”? 

Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme is probably best known for their fresh, hot, glazed, yeast-raised doughnuts. The company’s “Hot Doughnuts Now” flashing sign is an integral part of the brand’s appeal and fame.

Which Entenmann’s doughnut is the company’s top seller in 2005?

Rich Frosted Chocolate Dipped. Introduced in 1972, the Rich Frosted Chocolate Dipped doughnut has become a favorite among consumers. More than 168 million pounds of chocolate has been used to produce the doughnuts. Image how many swimming pools you could fill with that amount of chocolate!

Which is NOT one of Dunkin’ Donuts top selling donuts as of 2005?

Coconut Crunch. Jelly-filled and Chocolate frosted also rank as their top sellers. Coconut Crunch, although not a number one seller, still remains one of the over 52 varieties of donuts the chain produces on a yearly basis.

Which chain produced the world’s largest edible doughnut in 1998?

Winchell’s House of Donuts. You may also know Winchell’s by its other name, “Home of the Fresh ‘n Warm Donut” The store located in Pasadena, CA, created a gigantic version of their apple fritter doughnut. It weighed 5000 pounds and stood 95 feet in diameter!

What is the name given to the popular Polish doughnut, which is now being marketed in many U.S. grocery stores today?

Paczki. The others are also types of doughnuts from other regions around the world. The popular deep-fried Paczki’s are usually filled with jams such as raspberry, strawberry, lemon ,and prune. They are pronounced (poonch-key) and have deep roots in Polish heritage and history.

According to an article published by Restaurant.org in 2002, what is the estimated number of doughnuts that Americans consume annually?

10 billion. It really is too big of a number when you consider that as of 1997, there were 6,792 doughnut shops in the U.S. alone. In 2005, one can only imagine that the number of doughnut shops has increased dramatically. Unfortunately, 1997 was the last year that all overall statistics and data is available on this subject (or at least that I can find!).

According to a 2004 report by USA Today, doughnut sales increased 9% in 2003. According to the same article, how much is the U.S. doughnut industry worth?

$3.6 billion. USA Today also reports that the three fastest-growing chains in the U.S. are (in order) Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, and Tim Horton’s.

Nationally, what is Randy’s Donuts best known for?

Big Donut Drive-In. Randy’s Donuts is a landmark in Inglewood, CA. The 22 foot diameter donut on top of the building was built in 1952. The giant donut has been featured in many TV shows as well as many popular movies, such as “Mars Attacks” and “Coming to America”.

Special thanks to  www.funtrivia.com