Fast Company interviews Twitter Co-founder Ev Williams about how this hot new business started and evolved.
Ev Williams’ first hit business, Blogger, was a side project. Blogger quickly grew into the most popular blogging platform and was acquired by Google. Four years ago Ev was involved with a company called Odeo and that generated another now-famous, fast-growing side project, Twitter.
This interview reveals a bit more about the phenomenon called Twitter.
This excerpt from the interview explains why Evan is excited.
Q: What do you think the future will hold for Twitter?
A: We really believe Twitter is potentially massive in terms of its impact on millions and millions of people. I believe it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever worked on. We have high hopes for it. We’re not looking to sell it anytime soon. We’re just looking to execute right now and get it to as many people as possible. I don’t know what that number is, but I think it’s as big as the biggest Internet successes out there today. The more I work on it, the more I see opportunity.
If you are on Twitter you can get Evan’s tweets by following @EV.
Rumors are that Google made an attempt, Facebook admits a recent attempt, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos already invested last June (2008). The most recent investment is reportedly
TechCrunch reported on 1/24/09 that Twitter turned down a $500M purchase offer.
In mid-February a $35 million investment in Twitter at a $250M valuation made headlines.
On 3/4/09 Business Week did a feature article on the red hot 3-year-old, and that same day Motley Fool speculated that Eric Schmidt’s recent comments could mean Google will acquire Twitter soon.
The latest investment supposedly was too attractive to resist.
Twitter reportedly took in about $15 million back in June, 2008. With the recent $35M and prior investments that comes to about $55 million invested so far. Stay tuned to see if Motley Fool’s prediction is true. Personally, I think they will be acquired by Google, but not so quickly. Co-founder Evan Williams already sold his last business, the famous Blogger, to Google so he’s been there and done that. He doesn’t likely need the money, but they know each other well. I predict Twitter will hold out, grow as fast as possible and will probably take something in the range of a $1 to $2 billion offer within 18 months.
What is Twitter? Hear what co-founder Ev Williams has to say about it at TED, one of the most interesting conferences in the world.
Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter, explains how Twitter came to be and how it continues to surprise him as it evolves. Since it’s beginnings in the latter 1990’s The TED conference puts the most interesting people in the fields of technology, education, and design on stage before some of the smartest and most influential audiences.
It’s still early, but I am convinced Twitter is a major phenomenon, not just a fad. In fact it could be revolutionary. Twitter is a new medium cobbled together from various preexisting parts that is much more than the sum of those parts.
The phenomenon is hard to grasp at first, but that has no effect on it’s significance or it’s potential to revolutionize the way people interact.
This isn’t as revolutionary as the web itself was, but it’s way up on the list. Just how high Twitter will rank will be determined over the next 3 to 5 years as it spreads it’s tentacles into our connected lives.
I like to watch the frontiers of technology for new developments and I like to see if I can predict the effects those will have over time. I started doing this way back when the first PCs were being marketed. Not the IBM variety. I’m taking the S100 bus and forward, but that’s another story. (That was in the late 70’s during my college years.)
As a software engineer and then as a development manager, I always wanted to know where things were going. I wanted to be sure our systems didn’t just meet current needs, but predictable future needs as well. As they say “don’t go to where the ball is, go to where the ball is going to be”.
During the 80’s I was working in a large company whose applications were based on mainframes. I was always working to bridge the gap to PCs. I watched as the PC revolution came through and peaked. I felt left behind. I focused on Windows-based systems, but I wondered if there would ever be another boom like the one that drove the PC. After some consideration I figured that the pace of change was only accelerating so there should be at least one or two more major waves of change before I hit retirement. Boy, was that right.
This interest in the future is what led to me starting my first major venture called Web Access in January of 1995. The Mosaic browser that ignited the web boom, was just 6 months old at the time but I could see the potential. I spent the next year evangelizing and educating people about the potential of the web and the rest is history. The web grew from a tiny swell to a tsunami of unparalleled proportions in record time.
Now we have Twitter. It’s not as revolutionary as the web, but I see all the markings of a major innovation with far-reaching effects. I will do more blogging to help explain the Twitter phenomenon and it’s potential.
Ev Williams’ first hit business, Blogger, was a side project. Blogger quickly grew into the most popular blogging platform and was acquired by Google. Four years ago Ev was involved with a company called Odeo and that generated another now-famous, fast-growing side project, Twitter.
On 3/4/09 Business Week did 
Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter, explains how Twitter came to be and how it continues to surprise him as it evolves. Since it’s beginnings in the latter 1990’s The TED conference puts the most interesting people in the fields of technology, education, and design on stage before some of the smartest and most influential audiences.
The phenomenon is hard to grasp at first, but that has no effect on it’s significance or it’s potential to revolutionize the way people interact.