Transcript of Jack Dorsey describing how the name “Twitter” and early branding evolved: initial naming goals (physical manifestation of updates), rejected names (jitter, twitch), Noah Glass finding “Twitter” in the dictionary (definition: short, inconsequential burst of information / bird chirps), early stylization as “twttr” to match a five-digit shortcode, conflict with Teen People’s shortcode leading to adoption of shortcode 40404 and restoring vowels, selection of a bird logo, and how users coined “tweet” and other conventions (username, hashtag, retweet). The piece emphasizes community-driven product evolution and pride in the brand’s cultural meaning.
Questions this video answers
Noah Glass
twttr
40404
Teen People
Chapters
When we were starting the company, we wanted something that really expressed or had a physical manifestation. Because when you received one of these messages and they were called updates, at the time, we didn't have the word tweet. When you received an update, your phone would buzz. And we just thought that was so cool that you do something virtually and it actually affects something physically. That was amazing. So we wanted a name that really celebrated that. And we came up with the word jitter and twitch. And both of those words don't really bring up the best sort of imagery. It's something you actually want to avoid. So Noah Glass, who started Odeo and was formative in the early Twitter days, went to the dictionary and he found the word Twitter. And it's actually in the dictionary. And it was in the dictionary before the company. And it means a short, inconsequential burst of information and chirps from birds. And we saw that definition and we're like, of course. I mean, this is it. This is what we do. So we took that name and then like a Standard Web 2.0 company, we removed the vowels and we started with the name twttr. But we didn't do it just to copy like a Flickr or the Web 2.0 trends. We did it because we were text based and in the United States, a short code was five digits and we wanted our shortcode to be twttr. So we applied for it. And then we found out that this magazine, Teen People, had that short code. So then we added the vowels back in and we came up with short code 40404, which had nothing to do with what we did, but it was available. So then our name was Twitter. And because it was Twitter chirps from birds, we took a bird illustration that we found on the web and that became our logo. And then the people using the service actually came up with the word tweet. A lot of our history is really around people using the service, inventing ways of doing things on the service. The username, the hashtag, the retweet. All these things have been invented by the people using the service, and the word tweet was coined by the people using the service. So it's really meaningful when you build a brand that people can bring their own personality and their own invention and product to, because that means you haven't just built a product, you've actually built a platform. And people can build upon that platform and make their own thing upon that platform. And then if they feel ownership over that, they continue to just use it in really interesting ways. So we've been very, very fortunate in the name and the bird as our logo. And the current bird, just when you see really stands for something, it doesn't just stand for something for the people in the company, but stands for something for people in the world. And that's something I'm really, really proud of. But naming is so difficult and something that I've always had trouble with, but having the right name just really makes everything really magical.
