Twitter's public launch establishes a lightweight broadcast network where activists, journalists, and campaigns experiment with rapid-fire messaging, hashtag organizing, and real-time newsmaking.
The first message is sent on 21 March 2006 and the service is released publicly in July 2006 as an SMS group-send tool; its short status updates and SMS bridge make it a favored tool for on-the-ground reporting without a laptop.
Its open API and, from 2007, hashtag conventions later seed new tactics—from #DontGo and #TCOT to Arab Spring solidarity campaigns—that teach partisans how to swarm narratives and pressure institutions in real time.
Twitter. just setting up my twttr. (2006). The first message sent on the service, timestamped 21 March 2006, which fixes the date used here.
Arrington, M. (2006). Odeo Releases Twttr. TechCrunch. Contemporaneous account of the 15 July 2006 public release, describing Twttr as an SMS group-send service with public per-user message pages.
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