The social site Twitter is celebrating its fifth anniversary!

Twitter, the popular messaging network, celebrates its fifth anniversary this week. When the social network was founded, it launched its first tweet eight days later. In 2007, Twitter emerged from the shadows at the annual tech festival, South By South West, in Austin, Texas, USA.

One of its founders, Biz Stone, was keen to point out that the group's success isn't due to technology and algorithms alone, but rather to the people who use the tool. Twitter now has 200 million users, and more than 140 million messages are sent via the network every day. The company aims to continue revolutionizing the internet. Its annual revenue is estimated at between $100 million and $150 million.

The current chairman of the company, Jack Dorsey, had launched this messaging service of 140 characters maximum, originally designed for mobile phones, while he was employed by a podcast company, Odeo, with the two other co-founders of Twitter, Biz Stone and Evan Williams.

Twitter, however, has not yet overtaken its main competitor, Facebook, which claims 500 million users.

A showcase of choice

Today, Twitter is considered an essential means of communication, both in contexts of natural disaster (for example, what is happening in Japan) and in the mass movements that have shaken a large part of the Middle East recently.

Although the site has long preferred to invest its energy in growing the network and raising its profile, it has been generating significant advertising revenue for a year through sponsored messages; however, it is not yet profitable.

Source: www.tsr.ch