Meme Man , sometimes also referred to as Mr. Succ or the Stonks guy , is a character often featured in internet memes . He is depicted as a 3D render of a smooth, bald, and often disembodied blue-eyed male head. He was popularized in the mid-2010s by the artist "Special meme fresh", and became a common character in many surreal memes , a genre of internet humor inspired by surrealism . During the 2021 GameStop short squeeze , Meme Man was popularized by users of the subreddit r/wallstreetbets as the face of the "stonks" meme.
93-464: The first usage of him as a recurring character was on the Facebook page of the artist "Special meme fresh" starting in 2014, and soon spread to become "one of the only consistent stylistic elements" of the surreal memes aesthetic. On June 5, 2017, the artist uploaded an image of Meme Man overlaid on top of a stock photo of a man in a business suit with arms crossed and a chart pointing upwards behind him, and
186-463: A TED talk about the social media platform's spread of abuse and misinformation, which has brought him criticism. On August 30, 2019, Dorsey's personal Twitter account was allegedly breached for nearly an hour by a group calling itself the Chuckling Squad, posting and retweeting numerous racist tweets. On October 23, 2019, Twitter's stock price fell by nearly 21 percent, to $ 30.75. The reason
279-426: A " # " sign. Similarly, the " @ " sign followed by a username is used for mentioning or replying to other users. In 2014, Twitter introduced hashflags, special hashtags that automatically generate a custom emoji next to them for a certain period of time. Hashflags may be generated by Twitter themselves or be purchased by corporations. To repost a message from another user and share it with one's own followers,
372-465: A "repost" or "retweet". In 2015, Twitter launched "quote tweet" (originally called "retweet with comment"), a feature that allows users to add a comment to their post, imbedding one post in the other. Users can also " like " (formerly "favorite") individual tweets. The counters for "likes", "retweets/reposts", and replies appear next to the respective buttons in timelines such as on profile pages and search results. Counters for likes and reposts exist on
465-516: A Web-based realtime status/short message communication service. When he first saw implementations of instant messaging , Dorsey wondered whether the software's user status output could be shared easily among friends. He approached Odeo , which at the time happened to be interested in text messaging . Dorsey and Biz Stone decided that SMS text suited the status-message idea, and built a prototype of Twitter in about two weeks. The idea attracted many users at Odeo and investment from Evan Williams ,
558-559: A chatbot ( Grok ), job search, and Spaces, a social audio feature. Users can vote on context added by approved users using the Community Notes feature. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey , Noah Glass , Biz Stone , and Evan Williams , and was launched in July of that year. Twitter grew quickly; by 2012 more than 100 million users produced 340 million tweets per day. Twitter, Inc.,
651-469: A chatbot, and the social audio feature Spaces. Founded in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey , Noah Glass , Biz Stone , and Evan Williams as Twitter, it underwent a rebranding in July 2023 after being acquired by Elon Musk in 2022. Now operating as X, the platform closely resembles its predecessor but includes additional features such as long-form texts, account monetization options, audio-video calls, integration with xAI 's Grok chatbot, job search, and
744-500: A co-founder of that firm in 2005 who had left Google after selling Pyra Labs and Blogger . Noah Glass , Evan Williams , and Biz Stone co-founded Odeo, later renamed Obvious Corporation, which then spun off Twitter, Inc. Dorsey became Twitter's Chief Executive Officer (CEO). As CEO, Dorsey saw the startup through two rounds of funding by venture capitalists. He reportedly lost his position for leaving work early to enjoy other pursuits, such as yoga and fashion design . As
837-613: A dedicated tab in Twitter's apps, chronicling news headlines, sporting events, and other content. In September 2016, creation of moments became available to all Twitter users. On October 21, 2021, a report based on a "long-running, massive-scale randomized experiment" that analyzed "millions of tweets sent between 1 April and 15 August 2020", found that Twitter's machine learning recommendation algorithm amplified right-leaning politics on personalized user Home timelines. The report compared seven countries with active Twitter users where data
930-486: A fashion model. By age 14, he had become interested in dispatch routing . Dorsey enrolled at the University of Missouri–Rolla in 1995 and attended for two-plus years before transferring to New York University in 1997, but he dropped out two years later, one semester short of graduating. He came up with the idea that eventually became Twitter while studying at New York University. While working on dispatching as
1023-456: A hyperlink is an expectation of reciprocal linking by followers. According to research published in April 2014, around 44% of user accounts have never tweeted. About 22% of Americans say they have used Twitter, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey. In 2009, Nielsen Online reported that Twitter had a user-retention rate of 40%. Many people stop using the service after a month; therefore
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#17330856790491116-527: A joke for April Fools Day. Twitter Twitter , officially known as X since July 2023, is a social networking service . It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites . Users can share short text messages, images, and videos in short posts commonly known as " tweets " or " retweets " (officially "post" or "repost") and like other users' content. The platform also includes direct messaging , video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists, communities,
1209-447: A photo and attach it to a Tweet right from Twitter.com. Users now also have the ability to add pictures to Twitter's search by adding hashtags to the tweet. Twitter also plans to provide photo galleries designed to gather and syndicate all photos that a user has uploaded on Twitter and third-party services such as TwitPic . On March 29, 2016, Twitter introduced the ability to add a caption of up to 480 characters to each image attached to
1302-465: A post's standalone page too. Since September 2020, quote tweets, formerly known as "retweet with comment", have their own counter on their post page. Until the legacy desktop front end that was discontinued in 2020, a row with miniature profile pictures of up to ten liking or retweeting users was displayed (earliest documented implementation in December 2011 overhaul), as well as a tweet reply counter next to
1395-526: A precedent I feel is dangerous". In November 2022, Twitter reinstated Trump's account following Elon Musk 's purchase of the platform. In June 2023, Dorsey endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his campaign to become the Democratic party nominee in the 2024 United States presidential election . In March 2016, Dorsey fully funded about 600 Missouri public school projects registered at DonorsChoose . In October 2019, Dorsey donated $ 350,000 to #TeamTrees ,
1488-418: A premium tier of Twitter Blue introduced on November 9, 2022, priced at US$ 7.99 per month. On November 11, 2022, after the introduction of this feature led to prominent issues involving accounts using the feature to impersonate public figures and companies, Twitter Blue with verification was temporarily suspended. After about a month, Twitter Blue was relaunched on December 12, 2022, though for those purchasing
1581-502: A programmer, Dorsey moved to California . In 2000, Dorsey started his company in Oakland to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the Web. His other projects and ideas at this time included networks of medical devices and a "frictionless service market". In July 2000, building on dispatching and inspired in part by LiveJournal and by AOL Instant Messenger , he had the idea for
1674-1114: A relatively small number of users can affect trending topics through a concerted campaign, the feature has been the targeted of concerted manipulation campaigns. While some campaigns are innocuous, others have promoted conspiracy theories or hoaxes, or sought to amplify extremist messages. Some featured trends are globally displayed, while others are limited to a specific country. A 2021 study by EPFL researchers found that frequent "ephemeral astroturfing " efforts targeted at Trends; from 2015 to 2019, "47% of local trends in Turkey and 20% of global trends are fake, created from scratch by bots...The fake trends discovered include phishing apps, gambling promotions, disinformation campaigns, political slogans, hate speech against vulnerable populations and even marriage proposals." The MIT Technology Review reported that, as of 2022, Twitter "sometimes manually overrides particularly objectionable trends" and, for some trends, used both algorithmic and human input to select representative tweets with context. In late 2009,
1767-424: A size of less than one megabyte , designed for devices with limited storage capacity. On June 3, 2021, Twitter announced a paid subscription service called Twitter Blue. Following Twitter's rebranding to "X" , the subscription service was initially renamed to X Blue (or simply Blue), and, on August 5, 2023, was rebranded as X Premium (or simply Premium). The subscription provides additional premium features to
1860-537: A slightly larger Twitter demographic than men—53% over 47%. It also stated that 5% of users accounted for 75% of all activity. According to Quancast, 27 million people in the US used Twitter in September 2009; 63% of Twitter users were under 35 years old; 60% of Twitter users were Caucasian, but a higher than average (compared to other Internet properties) were African American/black (16%) and Hispanic (11%); 58% of Twitter users have
1953-551: A social audio feature; "super follows", a way to subscribe to creators for exclusive content; and a beta of "ticketed Spaces", which makes access to certain audio rooms paid. Twitter unveiled a redesign in August 2021, with adjusted colors and a new Chirp font, which improves the left-alignment of most Western languages. Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022; Musk acted as CEO of Twitter until June 2023 when he
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#17330856790492046-541: A subscription will be required to retain verified status, costing $ 1,000 per-month for organizations (which are designated with a gold verified symbol), plus an additional $ 50 for each "affiliate". The change was originally scheduled for April 1, 2023, but was delayed to April 20, 2023, following criticism of the changes. Musk also announced plans for the "For You" timeline to prioritize verified accounts and user followers only beginning April 15, 2023, and threatened to only allow verified users to participate in polls (although
2139-484: A total household income of at least US$ 60,000. The prevalence of African American Twitter usage and in many popular hashtags has been the subject of research studies. Twitter grew from 100 million monthly active users (MAUs) in September 2011, to 255 million in March 2014, and more than 330 million in early 2019. In 2013, there were over 100 million users actively using Twitter daily and about 500 million tweets every day. A 2016 Pew research poll found that Twitter
2232-459: A tweet, accessible via screen reading software or by hovering the mouse above a picture inside TweetDeck . In April 2022, Twitter made the ability to add and view captions globally available. Descriptions can be added to any uploaded image with a limit of 1000 characters. Images that have a description will feature a badge that says ALT in the bottom left corner, which will bring up the description when clicked. In 2015, Twitter began to roll out
2325-439: A user can click the repost button within the post. Users can reply to other accounts' replies. Users can hide replies to their messages and select who can reply to each of their tweets before sending them: anyone, accounts who follow the post's author, specific accounts, or none. The original, strict 140 character limit was gradually relaxed. In 2016, Twitter announced that attachments, links, and media such as photos, videos, and
2418-560: A verification process accessible to premium users. Several Twitter legacy features were removed from the site after Musk acquired Twitter, including Circles, NFT profile pictures, and pronouns in profiles. Musk aims to transform X into an "everything app", akin to WeChat . Tweets were publicly visible by default, but senders can restrict message delivery to only their followers. Users can mute users they do not wish to interact with, block accounts from viewing their posts, and remove accounts from their followers list. Users can post via
2511-496: Is a URL shortening service created by Twitter. It is only available for links posted to Twitter and not available for general use. All links posted to Twitter use a t.co wrapper. Twitter intended the service to protect users from malicious sites, and to use it to track clicks on links within tweets. Twitter had previously used the services of third parties TinyURL and bit.ly . In June 2011, Twitter announced its own integrated photo-sharing service that enables users to upload
2604-579: Is a social audio feature that enables users to host or participate in a live-audio virtual environment called space for conversation. A maximum of 13 people are allowed onstage. The feature was initially limited to users with at least 600 followers, but since October 2021, any Twitter user can create a Space. In March 2020, Twitter began to test a stories feature known as "fleets" in some markets, which officially launched on November 17, 2020. Fleets could contain text and media, are only accessible for 24 hours after they are posted, and are accessed within
2697-469: Is a board member of the Berggruen Institute 's Governance Center. Dorsey gives advice in a chapter of Tim Ferriss ' book Tools of Titans . Dorsey is a vocal Bitcoin advocate, and has spoken at Bitcoin conferences such as "The B Word". He has said that if he were not working on Twitter and Square, he would be working on Bitcoin. He also endorses and financially supported the development of
2790-466: Is an American Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and programmer, who is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Inc. from 2015 until 2021, as well as co-founder, principal executive officer and chairman of Block, Inc. , which is the developer of the Square financial services platform. He is also the founder of Bluesky . As of October 2023, Forbes estimated his net worth to be $ 3.1 billion. Dorsey
2883-773: Is on Market Street in San Francisco . In September 2012, Business Insider magazine valued Square Inc. at US$ 3.2 billion. Dorsey is CEO of Square, Inc. On October 14, 2015, Square filed for an IPO to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange . As of that date, Dorsey owned 24.4 percent of the company. In March 2020 the FDIC permitted Square to open a bank. It announced plans to launch Square Financial Services in 2021. In May 2020, Dorsey announced that employees of Square would permanently become remote workers . In 2020, for months, Square began withholding up to 30 percent of
Meme Man - Misplaced Pages Continue
2976-640: Is used by 24% of all online US adults. It was equally popular with men and women (24% and 25% of online Americans respectively), but more popular with younger generations (36% of 18–29-year olds). A 2019 survey conducted by the Pew Foundation found that Twitter users are three times as likely to be younger than 50 years old, with the median age of adult U.S. users being 40. The survey found that 10% of users who are most active on Twitter are responsible for 80% of all tweets. San Antonio -based market-research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from
3069-497: The 2016 presidential election . Following this testimony, Twitter shares fell six percent. Dorsey met privately with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House and discussed Trump's concerns that Twitter had limited or removed some of his Twitter followers, and those of conservatives. After the meeting, Dorsey tweeted that their discussion included making Twitter "healthier and more civil". A week earlier, Dorsey took part in
3162-525: The Nostr social networking protocol. In 2012, Dorsey moved to the Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Francisco . In 2015, Dorsey said he began his mornings with meditation. In late 2017, Dorsey completed ten days of meditation known as Vipassanā taught by followers of S. N. Goenka . In November 2018, Dorsey went on a birthday Vipassanā meditation trip to Myanmar . In 2019, Dorsey contributed financially to
3255-607: The Republican and Democratic conventions during the U.S. presidential campaign , and winning a bid for non-exclusive streaming rights to ten NFL games in 2016. During an event in New York in May 2017, Twitter announced that it planned to construct a 24-hour streaming video channel hosted within the service, featuring content from various partners. Twitter announced a number of new and expanded partnerships for its streaming video services at
3348-611: The "Breakout of the Year" Webby Award . In February 2010, Twitter users were sending 50 million tweets per day. By March 2010, the company recorded over 70,000 registered applications. In June 2010, about 65 million tweets were posted each day, equaling about 750 tweets sent each second, according to Twitter. As noted on Compete.com , Twitter moved up to the third-highest-ranking social networking site in January 2009 from its previous rank of twenty-second. From September through October 2010,
3441-517: The "Twitter Lists" feature was added, making it possible for users to follow a curated list of accounts all at once, rather than following individual users. Currently, lists can be set to either public or private. Public lists may be recommended to users via the general Lists interface and appear in search results. If a user follows a public list, it will appear in the "View Lists" section of their profile, so that other users may quickly find it and follow it as well. Private lists can only be followed if
3534-458: The "stonks" meme as a reaction on Twitter, and on January 26, 2021, he tweeted the word "Gamestonk!!" with an attached link to r/wallstreetbets . Immediately afterwards, shares in GameStop rose 157 percent in extended-hours trading , which some linked with Musk's tweet. In 2021, the multiplayer video game Fortnite released the playable character "Diamond Hanz", based on the design of Meme Man, as
3627-531: The 10th most downloaded mobile app of the decade, from 2010 to 2019. On March 21, 2012, Twitter celebrated its sixth birthday by announcing that it had 140 million users, a 40% rise from September 2011, who were sending 340 million tweets per day. On June 5, 2012, a modified logo was unveiled through the company blog, removing the text to showcase the slightly redesigned bird as the sole symbol of Twitter. On December 18, 2012, Twitter announced it had surpassed 200 million monthly active users . In September 2013,
3720-526: The Buy button, where order fulfillment was handed from within Twitter, these cards are external links to online storefronts from which the products may be purchased. In March 2022, Twitter expanded the test to allow companies to showcase up to 50 products on their profiles. In November 2021, Twitter introduced support for "shoppable" live streams, in which brands can hold streaming events that similarly display banners and pages highlighting products that are featured in
3813-540: The Pear Analytics survey by arguing that what the Pear researchers labeled "pointless babble" is better characterized as " social grooming " or "peripheral awareness" (which she justifies as persons "want[ing] to know what the people around them are thinking and doing and feeling, even when co-presence isn't viable"). Similarly, a survey of Twitter users found that a more specific social role of passing along messages that include
Meme Man - Misplaced Pages Continue
3906-520: The Twitter app; Twitter announced it would start implementing advertising into fleets in June 2021. Fleets were removed in August 2021; Twitter had intended for fleets to encourage more users to tweet regularly, but instead they were generally used by already-active users. Twitter introduced its "trends" feature in mid-2008, an algorithmic lists of trending topics among users. A word or phrase mentioned can become "trending topic" based on an algorithm. Because
3999-401: The Twitter website, compatible external applications (such as for smartphones ), or by Short Message Service (SMS) available in certain countries. Users may subscribe to other users' posts—this is known as "following" and subscribers are known as "followers" or "tweeps", a portmanteau of Twitter and peeps. Individual posts can be forwarded by other users to their own feed, a process known as
4092-568: The United States and in English) over a two-week period in August 2009 from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm (CST) and separated them into six categories. Pointless babble made up 40%, with 38% being conversational. Pass-along value had 9%, self-promotion 6% with spam and news each making 4%. Despite Jack Dorsey's own open contention that a message on Twitter is "a short burst of inconsequential information", social networking researcher danah boyd responded to
4185-454: The ability to attach poll questions to tweets. Polls are open for up to 7 days, and voters are not personally identified. In Twitter's early years, users could communicate with Twitter using SMS. Twitter discontinued this feature in most countries in April 2023, after hackers had exposed vulnerabilities in the feature. In 2016, Twitter began to place a larger focus on live streaming video programming, hosting various events including streams of
4278-497: The according button on a tweet's page. Twitter allows users to update their profile via their mobile phones either by text messaging or by apps released for certain smartphones and tablets. Twitter announced in a tweet on September 1, 2022, that the ability to edit a tweet was being tested for select users. Eventually, all Twitter Blue subscribers would be able to use the feature. Users can group posts together by topic or type by use of hashtags – words or phrases prefixed with
4371-459: The board of directors of Bluesky Social , a Twitter spin-off developing a decentralized social networking protocol and app . In May 2024, he announced he was no longer on the board of directors. He instead endorsed X , which he called "freedom technology". In a 2024 interview, Dorsey said that Bluesky's shift toward a traditional corporate structure and the introduction of centralized moderation tools were major factors behind his leaving
4464-438: The board of directors of the social network. In October 2022, Dorsey retained his 2.4% ownership of Twitter when the company was sold to Elon Musk . Dorsey, along with co-founder Jim McKelvey , developed a small business platform to accept debit and credit card payments on a mobile device called Square , released in May 2010. The small, square-shaped device attaches to iPhone , iPad , iPod Touch , or Android devices via
4557-462: The board. During his time as chairman, Dorsey joined several State Department delegations, including a trip to Iraq in April 2009, led by Jared Cohen . In November, when Iranians took to the streets in the Green Revolution , Twitter was scheduled to conduct maintenance of its site, which would entail temporarily shutting down Twitter's servers. Dorsey responded to a request from Cohen to delay
4650-418: The campaigns of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Tulsi Gabbard (now Republican ) and Andrew Yang . In 2020, he donated $ 15 million to 29 mayors pursuing the piloting of guaranteed basic income programs in the United States. Until 2021, Dorsey applied "world leader" exceptions that enabled President Donald Trump to post content on Twitter that would normally be removed or generate sanctions per
4743-533: The caption "Stonks", a deliberate misspelling of the word "stocks". The meme went viral and became a common reaction image on Reddit and Twitter . On February 1, 2019, Elon Musk bought the domain name "stankmemes.com" according to his tweet. In June 2020, when Tesla Inc. shares soared he tweeted "stonks" and the website featured this meme. On August 27, 2020, a tweet comparing Meme Man to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos went viral, accumulating over 400,000 likes as of July 30, 2021. Elon Musk has used both Meme Man and
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#17330856790494836-604: The committee, led the charge to force the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google to testify about the legal immunity the tech platforms receive under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1996. He announced his immediate resignation as Twitter's CEO on November 29, 2021. Dorsey was replaced by the company's former CTO Parag Agrawal , who took over as CEO. Dorsey continued to lead as the CEO of Block, Inc. In May 2022, Dorsey left
4929-399: The company began rolling out "New Twitter", an entirely revamped edition of twitter.com. Changes included the ability to see pictures and videos without leaving Twitter itself by clicking on individual tweets which contain links to images and clips from a variety of supported websites, including YouTube and Flickr , and a complete overhaul of the interface. In 2019, Twitter was announced to be
5022-469: The company opened applications for its premium subscription options called Super Follows. This lets eligible accounts charge $ 2.99, $ 4.99 or $ 9.99 per month to subscribe to the account. The launch only generated about $ 6,000 in its first two weeks. In 2023, the Super Follows feature was rebranded as simply "subscriptions", allowing users to publish exclusive long-form posts and videos for their subscribers;
5115-605: The company's data showed that 200 million users sent over 400 million tweets daily, with nearly 60% of tweets sent from mobile devices. In April 2014, Twitter underwent a redesign that made the site resemble Facebook somewhat, with a profile picture and biography in a column left to the timeline, and a full-width header image with parallax scrolling effect. Late in 2015, it became apparent that growth had slowed, according to Fortune, Business Insider, Marketing Land and other news websites including Quartz (in 2016). In 2019, Twitter released another redesign of its user interface. By
5208-509: The company. In 2013, Dorsey expressed his admiration of Michael Bloomberg to CNN , and said he aspires to become mayor of New York City . He served as a judge for Bloomberg's NYC BigApps competition in 2011. On December 24, 2013, Dorsey was announced as a new member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company . In January 2018, it was reported that Dorsey would not seek reelection at Disney's March annual meeting, due to increased difficulty with conflicts of interest. Dorsey
5301-410: The creator shares a specific link to their list. Lists add a separate tab to the Twitter interface with the title of the list, such as "News" or "Economics". In October 2015, Twitter introduced "Moments"—a feature that allows users to curate tweets from other users into a larger collection. Twitter initially intended the feature to be used by its in-house editorial team and other partners; they populated
5394-532: The event, including Bloomberg , BuzzFeed , Cheddar , IMG Fashion , Live Nation Entertainment , Major League Baseball , MTV and BET , NFL Network , the PGA Tour , The Players' Tribune , Ben Silverman and Howard T. Owens ' Propagate, The Verge , Stadium and the WNBA . as of the first quarter of 2017 , Twitter had over 200 content partners, who streamed over 800 hours of video over 450 events. Twitter Spaces
5487-469: The funds that merchants collected from customers using its Cash App . On December 1, 2021, CEO Jack Dorsey officially changed the name of the platform to Block, Inc. This was due in part to his interest in the blockchain as well as the new name encompassing the various businesses better than the current name, which is mostly associated with its merchant-payment services. The stock ticker for Block, Inc. would remain "SQ". In February 2022, Dorsey joined
5580-406: The headphone jack, and as a mini card reader, allows a person to swipe their card, choose an amount to transfer to the recipient and then sign their name for confirmation. Square is also a system for sending paperless receipts via text message or email, and is available as a free app for iOS and Android OS. The company grew from 10 employees in December 2009 to over 100 by June 2011. Square's office
5673-408: The idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate to a small group in 2006. The original project code name for the service was twttr , an idea that Williams later ascribed to Noah Glass , inspired by Flickr and the five-character length of American SMS short codes . The decision was also partly due to the fact that the domain twitter.com was already in use, and it was six months after
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#17330856790495766-448: The investors and shareholders. Williams fired Glass, who was silent about his part in Twitter's startup until 2011. Twitter spun off into its own company in April 2007. The tipping point for Twitter's popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000. The company experienced rapid initial growth thereafter. In 2009, Twitter won
5859-427: The latter change has yet to occur). Effective April 21, 2023, Twitter requires companies to participate in the verified organizations program to purchase advertising on the platform, although companies that spend at least $ 1,000 on advertising per-month automatically receive membership in the program at no additional cost. From April 25, 2023, verified users are now prioritized in replies to tweets. In June 2021,
5952-530: The launch of twttr that the crew purchased the domain and changed the name of the service to Twitter . Work on the project started in February 2006. The first Twitter prototype, developed by Dorsey and contractor Florian Weber, was used as an internal service for Odeo employees. The full version was introduced publicly on July 15, 2006. In October 2006, Biz Stone , Evan Williams , Dorsey, and other members of Odeo formed Obvious Corporation and acquired Odeo from
6045-557: The maintenance so that it would not affect the revolution in Iran, because Iranians were using Twitter to communicate and coordinate. Since President Obama had announced that there would be no meddling in Iran, the move sparked controversy. In February 2010, Dorsey was part of another State Department delegation, this time to Russia. In March 2011, he returned to Twitter as executive chairman after Dick Costolo replaced Williams as CEO. In July 2015, Costolo resigned as CEO, with Dorsey assuming
6138-519: The people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves." In February 2017, Dorsey and Executive Chairman Omid Kordestani matched a $ 530,000 donation to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) raised by Twitter staffers. Their match brought the total donation to $ 1.59 million. In March 2018, Dorsey announced that an improved version of the verification system would be coming to Twitter. The purpose of redesigning verification
6231-472: The person's handle, would no longer count; a user photo post used to count for around 24 characters. In 2017, Twitter handles were similarly excluded. The same year, Twitter doubled its historical 140-character-limitation to 280. Under the new limit, glyphs are counted as a variable number of characters, depending upon the script they are from. In 2023, Twitter announced that Twitter Blue users could create posts with up to 4,000 characters in length. t.co
6324-482: The pivot in marketing was reportedly intended to help compete with Substack . In May 2021, Twitter began testing a Tip Jar feature on its iOS and Android clients. The feature allows users to send monetary tips to certain accounts, providing a financial incentive for content creators on the platform. The Tip Jar is optional and users can choose whether or not to enable tips for their account. On September 23, 2021, Twitter announced that it will allow users to tip users on
6417-512: The platform's rules. In May 2020, some of Trump's tweets received warning labels, and from Election Day in November 2020, more flaggings were applied to his tweets. On January 6, 2021, after pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol , Twitter applied a 12-hour timeout to Trump's account for violating its Civic Integrity policy. Trump's account was suspended permanently on January 8. On January 14, Dorsey defended banning Trump but also said it "sets
6510-404: The platform. Since his acquisition , the platform has been criticized for enabling the increased spread of disinformation and hate speech . Linda Yaccarino succeeded Musk as CEO on June 5, 2023, with Musk remaining as the chairman and the chief technology officer . In July 2023, Musk announced that Twitter would be rebranded to "X" and the bird logo would be retired, a process which
6603-420: The platform. Eligible users of Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows will be able to receive their earnings in the form of USD coin, a stablecoin whose value is that of the U.S. dollar. Users can also hold their earnings in crypto wallets, and then exchange them into other cryptocurrencies. From 2014 to 2017, Twitter offered a "Buy button" feature, allowing tweets to embed products that could be purchased from within
6696-449: The post of interim CEO. He was named permanent CEO in October 2015. In May 2016, Dorsey announced that Twitter would not count photos and links in the 140-character limit to free up more space for text. This was an attempt to entice new users, since the number of tweets per day had dropped from about 500 million in September 2013 and its peak of 661 million in August 2014 to about 300 million in January 2016. On November 22, 2016, Dorsey
6789-472: The presentation. Daily user estimates vary as the company does not publish statistics on active accounts. A February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranked Twitter as the third most used social network based on their count of 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visits. An April 2017 a statista.com blog entry ranked Twitter as the tenth most used social network based on their count of 319 million monthly visitors. Its global user base in 2017
6882-481: The service began to grow in popularity, Dorsey chose the improvement of uptime as top priority, even over creating revenue—which, as of 2008, Twitter was not designed to earn. Dorsey described the commercial use of Twitter and its API as two things that could lead to paid features. His three guiding principles, which he says the company shares, are simplicity, constraint, and craftsmanship. On October 16, 2008, Williams took over as CEO, while Dorsey became chairman of
6975-418: The service through the iOS app store , the cost will be $ 10.99 a month as to offset the 30% revenue split that Apple takes. Twitter initially grandfathered users and entities that had gained verification due to their status as public figures, referring to them as "legacy verified accounts" that "may or may not be notable". On March 25, 2023, it was announced that "legacy" verification status would be removed;
7068-399: The service. In November 2023 a "Premium+" subscription was launched, with a higher monthly fee giving benefits such as the omission of adverts on For You and Following feeds. In November 2022, Musk announced plans to add account verification and the ability to upload longer audio and video to Twitter Blue. A previous perk offering advertising-free news articles from participating publishers
7161-415: The service. Users could also add their billing and shipping information directly to their accounts. The buy button's platform partners at launch included Stripe , Gumroad , Musictoday , and The Fancy . In July 2021, Twitter began testing a "Shop module" for iOS users in the United States, allowing accounts associated with brands to display a carousel of cards on their profiles showcasing products. Unlike
7254-685: The site may potentially reach only about 10% of all Internet users . Noting how demographics of Twitter users differ from the average Americans, commentators have cautioned against media narratives that treat Twitter as representative of the population, adding that only 10% of users Tweet actively, and that 90% of Twitter users have Tweeted no more than twice. In 2016, shareholders sued Twitter, alleging it "artificially inflated its stock price by misleading them about user engagement". The company announced on September 20, 2021, that it would pay $ 809.5 million to settle this class-action lawsuit. Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976)
7347-696: The social network with bitcoin . The feature will be available for iOS users. Previously, users could tip with fiat currency using services such as Square's Cash App and PayPal's Venmo . Twitter will integrate the Strike bitcoin lightning wallet service. It was noted that at this current time, Twitter will not take a cut of any money sent through the tips feature. On August 27, 2021, Twitter rolled out Ticketed Spaces, which let Twitter Spaces hosts charge between $ 1 and $ 999 for access to their rooms. In April 2022, Twitter announced that it will partner with Stripe, Inc. for piloting cryptocurrency payouts for limited users in
7440-634: The start of 2019 , Twitter had more than 330 million monthly active users. Twitter then experienced considerable growth during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The platform also was increasingly used for misinformation related to the pandemic . Twitter started marking tweets which contained misleading information, and adding links to fact-checks. In 2021, Twitter began the research phase of Bluesky , an open source decentralized social media protocol where users can choose which algorithmic curation they want. The same year, Twitter also released Twitter Spaces,
7533-464: The user had not directly followed) that the algorithm had "deemed relevant" to the users' past preferences. Twitter randomly chose 1% of users whose Home timelines displayed content in reverse-chronological order from users they directly followed. Twitter had mobile apps for iPhone , iPad , and Android . In April 2017, Twitter introduced Twitter Lite , a progressive web app designed for regions with unreliable and slow Internet connections, with
7626-406: Was 328 million. According to Musk, the platform had 500 million monthly active users in March 2023, 550 million in March 2024, and 600 million in May 2024. In 2009, Twitter was mainly used by older adults who might not have used other social sites before Twitter. According to comScore only 11% of Twitter's users were aged 12 to 17. According to a study by Sysomos in June 2009, women made up
7719-496: Was an earnings miss off a third quarter report, which Twitter blamed on ad targeting problems. Dorsey had been making a concerted effort to dampen the effect that Twitter had on political elections, which entailed banning all political ads. This was also seen as a large contributor to the drop. Dorsey announced that, as of November 22, 2019, Twitter would ban all political advertising. The policy applies globally to all marketing campaigns about political issues. On February 29, 2020, it
7812-525: Was announced that activist hedge fund Elliott Management led by billionaire Paul Singer was looking to oust Dorsey and nominate four directors to Twitter's board, including Elliott's senior portfolio manager Jesse Cohn. The two parties reached an agreement days later, with Dorsey remaining CEO. In October 2020, Dorsey was one of several tech firm CEOs subpoenaed by the US Senate Commerce Committee . Republican Roger Wicker , who chaired
7905-497: Was available (Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and Spain) and examined tweets "from major political groups and politicians". Researchers used the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHESDATA) to position parties on political ideology within each country. The "machine learning algorithms", introduced by Twitter in 2016, personalized 99% of users' feeds by displaying tweets (even older tweets and retweets from accounts
7998-465: Was based in San Francisco, California, and had more than 25 offices around the world. A signature characteristic of the service initially was that posts were required to be brief. Posts were initially limited to 140 characters, which was changed to 280 characters in 2017. The limitation was removed for subscribed accounts in 2023. The majority of tweets are produced by a minority of users. In 2020, it
8091-557: Was born and raised in St. Louis , Missouri. His father is Tim Dorsey and his mother is Marcia (née Smith) Dorsey. Jack Dorsey is partly of Italian descent on his mother's side. His father worked for a company that developed mass spectrometers and his mother was a homemaker. He was raised Catholic , and his uncle is a Catholic priest in Cincinnati . Dorsey attended Bishop DuBourg High School . In his younger days, he worked occasionally as
8184-417: Was briefly suspended from his own Twitter account with 3.9 million followers. After restoring the account, Dorsey tweeted that the suspension was due to an "internal mistake". Twitter introduced recommendation algorithms in the main feed in 2016. Dorsey wrote in 2022 that "The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for
8277-521: Was completed by May 2024. Since Musk's takeover, data from app-tracking firms has shown that global usage of Twitter has declined by approximately 15%, compared to a decline of 5–10% in some other social media sites. The platform has disputed that usage has dropped at all, with Musk saying that membership had grown to 600 million users as of a May 2024 tweet. By October 2024, the platform was estimated to have lost about 80 percent of its value since Musk acquired it. Jack Dorsey claims to have introduced
8370-406: Was dropped, but Musk stated that Twitter did want to work with publishers on a similar " paywall bypass" perk. Musk had pushed for a more expensive version of Twitter Blue following his takeover, arguing that it would be needed to offset a decline in advertising revenue. Twitter states that paid verification is required to help reduce fraudulent accounts. The verification marker was included in
8463-525: Was estimated that approximately 48 million accounts (15% of all accounts) were run by internet bots rather than humans. The service is owned by the American company X Corp. , which was established to succeed the prior owner Twitter, Inc. in March 2023 following the October 2022 acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk for US$ 44 billion. Musk stated that his goal with the acquisition was to promote free speech on
8556-598: Was succeeded by Linda Yaccarino . In a move that, despite Yaccarino's accession, was widely attributed to Musk, Twitter was rebranded to X on July 23, 2023, and its domain name changed from twitter.com to x.com on May 17, 2024. X is one of the top social media platforms and the fifth-most-visited website in the world as of June 2024. Users can share posts containing text messages, images, and videos and interact with other users' content through likes and reposts. X offers additional features such as direct messaging , video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists, communities,
8649-478: Was to let people verify more facts about themselves, emphasizing proof of identity. The overhaul was not in place before the U.S midterm election of 2018 to help in verifying the identities of the candidates. In September 2018, Dorsey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee alongside Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg about the use of social media by Russia and others to meddle in
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