Colbert and Stewart Talkin' Twitter

About 30 seconds in they start bantering about Twitter. Had to put it on the blog for posterity.

OMG, That Was A Big Day

Congratulations @barackobama, it looks like you'll be the first President of the United States to have an official Twitter account. Also, thanks for taking part in an event that had a dramatic effect on Twitter activity and exposure worldwide. Here are some quick stats from yesterday.

• Updates increased 46% from previous Tuesday
• 7p-9p PST updates up 200% compared to same time last week
• Signups on Tuesday were up 40.3%
• Between 7p-9p PST signups were up 96.5% compared to same time last week
• Messages per second peaked almost 3x compared to first debate

And through it all, not a whale in site! Our technical approach over the last several months has been to find the weakest point of the system, fix it so it's no longer the weakest, move to the next weakest point, and so on. This simple technique has vastly improved performance, reliability, and capacity. We've got a lot of work ahead but yesterday certainly gave us hope.

Images of The Day

We had these little metal pins made up and we're giving them out tonight!

Looks like @nextinstinct spotted a Twittering voter in the wild!

Ben from Current TV designed this sticker.

Twitter Vote Report

Dave Troy has done it again. The guy behind Twittervision has built another compelling tool using Twitter. Twitter Vote Report urges folks to document any problems at the polls tomorrow on Twitter. Here's a news article about it.

Sweet Dreams Little Guy

Our tiny robot friend way out there on planet Mars introduced lots of new people to Twitter and sent us back some amazing discoveries. Along the way, he also transformed the way NASA shares science with the world. MarsPhoenix was an amazing use of Twitter that did not go unrecognized and we're happy to have had the chance to share in this historic mission. Alas, when the icy cloak of Martian winter draws darkness across the distant planet, a solar powered robot must say farewell. Sweet dreams little guy!

Twitter on Android

 

Thomas Marban (@thomas) tells me his Android Twitter app, Twitroid, will be available for download in the next couple days. Looks pretty hot. (Now, if only I could get me one of those G1s...)

Meet Our CEO and Chairman, Again

Three years ago during my time as CEO of Odeo, I was lucky to be working with a software engineer Jack Dorsey who wasn't afraid to bring up an idea he'd been thinking about for a long time. What if a simple status message was the format for a social communication service? We were exploring various options for Odeo at the time and experimenting with SMS, so the idea was intriguing. Jack teamed up with Biz Stone to design a prototype. This simple idea called Twitter proved increasingly interesting the more we fleshed it out.

After my company Obvious purchased the assets of Odeo which at the time included Twitter from the shareholders, we decided to form Twitter, Inc as a separate company founded by myself along with Jack and Biz. Jack had by then been leading the project for months with Biz's support, and I was intent on pursuing Obvious. With my blessing, the reigns of Twitter CEO were handed to Jack and I accepted a position as Chairman of the Board.

Rising quickly to the challenge, Jack took Twitter through an order of magnitude of growth and two major rounds of financing, while safely navigating some very rocky waters that would have taken even more experienced leaders down with the ship. Jack is a unique individual with a knack for artful minimalism and simplicity, combined with great vision and ambition. We are indeed fortunate to have his guidance.

Stepping into Different Roles
Jack and I have worked together since the beginning to define a direction and goals for the future of Twitter. I took an active executive role as Chief Product Officer at Twitter. This decision was driven by my enthusiasm and belief that Twitter has huge potential and deserves my full efforts.

We're entering a new phase now and there are new kinds of challenges ahead. Healthy companies acknowledge the need for change even during the best of times. As Twitter grows both internally and externally, we took a good look at our path forward and saw the need for a focused approach from a single leader.

While the board of directors and the company have nothing but praise for where Jack has taken us, we also agree that the best way forward is for Jack to step into the role Chairman, and for me to become CEO. Jack will remain on the board and be closely consulted for all strategic decisions, while I take on day-to-day operations with the support of Biz, Jason, Greg, and the rest of this impressive Twitter team.