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

Ice Hockey and The Stanley Cup: Canada’s Official Sport and the Game’s Ultimate Prize

Modern-day Ice Hockey

Fun Facts About Ice Hockey and The Stanley Cup

The Origin of Hockey

Hockey has been played in some form or other for 100s of years. It is thought to be 1 of the earliest sports in the world, and was played by the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, and Arabs.

Hurling, a sport very similar to hockey, is known to have been played during the first millennium BC in Ireland, and other similar types of sports were adopted by other Europeans in the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century). In pre-Columbian times (before the 16th century) Native South Americans also played a game much the same as hockey. The name hockey, thought to have been adapted by the English from the French word hoquet (shepherd’s crook), was 1st given to the sport in the eighteenth century but was not in common usage until the nineteenth century.

Ice Hockey

The modern game of ice hockey was invented in the mid-1850´s by British soldiers based in Canada. Rules were set by students at McGill University in Montréal, Canada, in 1879, and many amateur clubs and leagues were organized in Canada by the late 1880´s. The game is believed to have been 1st played in the USA in 1893. By the beginning of the twentieth century the sport had spread to England and other parts of Europe. The modern game developed in Canada, and nowadays is very popular in North America and East Europe.

The NHL is the most important league in the world; this National Hockey League comprises teams from the United States and Canada, but for many years almost all NHL players Canadians. The winning team of this competition is awarded the Stanley Cup trophy. Ice Hockey became an Olympic sport in 1920 and is 1 of the most popular events at the Winter Olympics.

The Stanley Cup

“I have for some time been thinking that it would be a good thing if there were a challenge cup, which would be held from year to year by the leading hockey club in Canada. There does not appear to be any outward sign of a championship at present, and considering the interest that hockey matches now elicit, I am willing to give a cup which shall be held annually by the winning club.”

So mused Lord Stanley of Preston in 1892, at a sports banquet in Ottawa. The following year Canada’s governor-general was true to his word, purchasing a silver bowl for $50 and naming it the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup. Hockey folks went with a less formal designation, the Stanley Cup.

The first winner was a Montreal team that finished atop the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, considered the best league going at the time. But in its early years, the prize was not exclusive to one hockey league, nor was it meant to be. It was a challenge cup, changing hands in much the same way as a boxing title. Contenders issued challenges, and the champions held the Cup for as long as they could fend off all comers. Independent trustees ensured that legitimate challenges were met on a regular basis.

In later years, as professionalism swept the game, it was accepted that the Stanley Cup could not remain exclusive to amateur teams. The Stanley Cup officially turned pro in 1910, when the National Hockey Association took possession of it. But it was not until 1926 that the National Hockey League emerged indisputably as the top league in North America, effectively taking control of the Cup. That control was formalized in an agreement signed with the Cup trustees in 1947.

Special thanks to CollegeSportsScholarships.com and About.com

The Cincinnati Red Stockings: Baseball’s First Professional Team

The Cincinnati Red Stockings, 1869

Fun Facts About the Cincinnati Red Stockings

• The team was organized by businessman, Harry Wright, who also played center field for the team and managed the defensive positioning, which was something that typically wasn’t done at that time.

• The team got their name from their uniform, consisting of knickerbockers with flashy crimson hosiery.

• Harry Wright’s younger brother George Wright, played shortstop for the Cincinnati red-stockings and later the Boston Red Stockings. He is reputed to have been the best player of that era.

• The Red Stockings featured ten men on salary for eight months from March 15th to November 15th.

• The Cincinnati Red Stockings won their first game on May 4th, 1869 by a score of 45-9. They then went on to go 57-1 (wins-tie), touring the U.S. playing teams from Boston to San Francisco, something that had not been done before.

• The following year, they won another 24 straight games before finally losing 8-7 in 11 innings against the Brooklyn Atlantics on June 14th. After their first loss, attendance declined substantially and they were disbanded the following year despite only losing 6 games all season.

• After the Cincinnati Red Stockings were disbanded as a professional club, Harry Wright was hired by Ivers Whitney Adams to organize a new professional club in Boston with the first professional league. In 1871, he then put together the Boston Red Stockings, bringing over three of the members of the former Cincinnati Red Stockings.

• The Cincinnati Red Stockings have no connection with the 1876-1880 and 1882-present day Cincinnati Reds other than being from the same town and inspiring those club’s names.

• The Boston Red Stockings eventually became the Boston Braves, which are now the Atlanta Braves. The Boston Red Sox were not established until 1901.

• The Cincinnati Red Stockings continue today as a vintage baseball team, playing the game of baseball as it was back in 1869: rules, uniforms, etc.

The Olympics: The Thrills of Victory, the Splendor of Pageantry and the Pride of Nations

The Olympic Flame burns brightly during the Opening Ceremony

Fun Facts About the Olympics

 

• The early Olympic Games were celebrated as a religious festival from 776 B.C. until 393 A.D., when the games were banned for being a pagan festival (the Olympics celebrated the Greek god Zeus).

• In 1894, a French educator Baron Pierre de Coubertin, proposed a revival of the ancient tradition, and thus the modern-day Olympic Summer Games were born.

• Opening day of the first modern Olympic Games was in Athens, Greece on April 5th, 1896.

• Women were first allowed to participate in 1900 at the second modern Olympic Games.

• The first opening ceremonies were held during the 1908 Olympic Games in London.

• During the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the procession of athletes is always led by the Greek team, followed by all the other teams in alphabetical order (in the language of the hosting country), except for the last team which is always the team of the hosting country.

• Created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic flag contains five interconnected rings on a white background.
  

  The Olympic Flag

• The five Olympic rings represent the five major regions of the world – Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceana, and every national flag in the world includes one of the five colors, which are (from left to right) blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The colors of the rings were chosen because at least one of them appeared on the flag of every country in the world.

• The Olympic flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.

• In 1921, Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, borrowed a Latin phrase from his friend, Father Henri Didon, for the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius (“Swifter, Higher, Stronger”) to be used as the Olympic motto.,

• Pierre de Coubertin wrote an oath for the athletes to recite at each Olympic Games. During the opening ceremonies, one athlete recites the oath on behalf of all the athletes. The Olympic oath was first taken during the 1920 Olympic Games by Belgian fencer Victor Boin.

• The Olympic Oath states, “In the name of all competitors, I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules that govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams.”

• Pierre de Coubertin got the idea for the Olympic Creed from a speech given by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot at a service for Olympic champions during the 1908 Olympic Games. The Creed reads: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

• The Olympic flame is a practice continued from the ancient Olympic Games. In Olympia (Greece), a flame was ignited by the sun and then kept burning until the closing of the Olympic Games.
  

  The ceremonial lighting of the Olympic Flame

• The flame first appeared in the modern Olympics at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

• The flame itself represents a number of things, including purity and the endeavor for perfection.

• In 1936, the chairman of the organizing committee for the 1936 Olympic Games, Carl Diem, suggested what is now the modern Olympic Torch relay. The Olympic flame is lit at the ancient site of Olympia by women wearing ancient-style robes and using a curved mirror and the sun. The Olympic Torch is then passed from runner to runner from the ancient site of Olympia to the Olympic stadium in the hosting city. The flame is then kept alight until the Games have concluded. The Olympic Torch relay represents a continuation from the ancient Olympic Games to the modern Olympics.

• The Olympic Hymn, played when the Olympic Flag is raised, was composed by Spyros Samaras and the words added by Kostis Palamas. The Olympic Hymn was first played at the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens but wasn’t declared the official hymn by the IOC until 1957.

• The last Olympic gold medals that were made entirely out of gold were awarded in 1912.

• The Olympic medals are designed especially for each individual Olympic Games by the host city’s organizing committee. Each medal must be at least three millimeters thick and 60 millimeters in diameter. Also, the gold and silver Olympic medals must be made out of 92.5 percent silver, with the gold medal covered in six grams of gold.

• Host Greece won the most medals (47) at the first Olympic Summer Games in 1896.

• James B. Connolly (United States), winner of the hop, step, and jump (the first final event in the 1896 Olympics), was the first Olympic champion of the modern Olympic Games.

• The winter Olympic Games were first held in 1924 (in Chamonix, France), beginning a tradition of holding them a few months earlier and in a different city than the summer Olympic Games.

• Beginning in 1994, the winter Olympic Games were held in completely different years (two years apart) than the summer Games.

• Norway has won the most medals (263) at the Winter Games.

• The United States has won more medals (2,189) at the Summer Games than any other country.

• Up until 1994 the Olympics were held every four years. Since then, the Winter and Summer games have alternated every two years.

• The first Olympics covered by U.S. television was the 1960 Summer Games in Rome by CBS.

• No country in the Southern Hemisphere has ever hosted a Winter Games.

• Three continents – Africa, South America, and Antarctica – have never hosted an Olympics.

• A record 202 countries participated in the 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Athens.

• Only four athletes have ever won medals at both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games: Eddie Eagan (United States), Jacob Tullin Thams (Norway), Christa Luding-Rothenburger (East Germany), and Clara Hughes (Canada).

• Speed skater Bonnie Blair has won six medals at the Olympic Winter Games. That’s more than any other American athlete.

• Nobody has won more medals at the Winter Games than cross-country skier Bjorn Dählie of Norway, who has 12.

• Larrisa Latynina, a gymnast from the former Soviet Union, finished her Summer Olympic Games career with 18 total medals—the most in history.

• In order to make the IOC an independent organization, the members of the IOC are not considered diplomats from their countries to the IOC, but rather are diplomats from the IOC to their respective countries.

• When choosing locations for the Olympic Games, the IOC specifically gives the honor of holding the Games to a city rather than a country.

• The United States Olympic Committee established the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983 to recognize outstanding American Olympic athletes, however, a plan to build a hall has been suspended due to lack of funding.

• The first marathon: In 490 BCE, Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, ran from Marathon to Athens (about 25 miles) to inform the Athenians the outcome of the battle with invading Persians. The distance was filled with hills and other obstacles; thus Pheidippides arrived in Athens exhausted and with bleeding feet. After telling the townspeople of the Greeks’ success in the battle, Pheidippides fell to the ground dead. In 1896, at the first modern Olympic Games, held a race of approximately the same length in commemoration of Pheidippides.

• During the first several modern Olympics, the marathon was always an approximate distance. In 1908, the British royal family requested that the marathon start at the Windsor Castle so that the royal children could witness its start. The distance from the Windsor Castle to the Olympic Stadium was 42,195 meters (or 26 miles and 385 yards). In 1924, this distance became the standardized length of a marathon.

• Because of World War I and World War II, there were no Olympic Games in 1916, 1940, or 1944.

• Tennis was played at the Olympics until 1924, then re-instituted in 1988.

• In 1960, the Winter Olympic Games were held in Squaw Valley, California (United States). In order to bedazzle and impress the spectators, Walt Disney was head of the committee that organized the opening day ceremonies. The 1960 Winter Games Opening Ceremony was filled with high school choirs and bands, releasing of thousands of balloons, fireworks, ice statues, releasing of 2,000 white doves, and national flags dropped by parachute.

• Though Russia had sent a few athletes to compete in the 1908 and 1912 Olympic Games, they did not compete again until the 1952 Games.

• Motor boating was an official sport at the 1908 Olympics.

• Polo was played at the Olympics in 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924, and 1936.

• The word “gymnasium” comes from the Greek root “gymnos” meaning nude; the literal meaning of “gymnasium” is “school for naked exercise.” Athletes in the ancient Olympic Games would participate in the nude.

• The first recorded ancient Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE with only one event – the stade. The stade was a unit of measurement (about 600 feet) that also became the name of the footrace because it was the distance run. Since the track for the stade (race) was a stade (length), the location of the race became the stadium.

• An Olympiad is a period of four successive years. The Olympic Games celebrate each Olympiad. For the modern Olympic Games, the first Olympiad celebration was in 1896. Every four years celebrates another Olympiad; thus, even the Games that were cancelled (1916, 1940, and 1944) count as Olympiads. The 2004 Olympic Games in Athens was called the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad.

• The Summer Olympic sports are archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, canoe / kayak, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, handball, judo, modern pentathlon (shooting, fencing, swimming, show jumping, and running), mountain biking, rowing, sailing, shooting, soccer, swimming, synchronized swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, track and field, triathlon (swimming, biking, running), volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling.

• The Winter Olympic sports are alpine skiing, biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooting), bobsled, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hocky, luge, Nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country skiing), skeleton, ski jumping, snowboarding, and speed skating.

VIDEO:  “The Olympic Hymn” by Spyros Samaras

VIDEO:  “The Olympic Anthem”, a.k.a, “Bugler’s Dream” by Leo Arnaud

Special thanks to www.factmonster.com and www.about.com