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Everyone’s first tweets are boring

Tobin Low Mar 21, 2014

The tech world is full of big birthdays it wants you to celebrate in 2014: The World Wide Web turned 25, Facebook turned 10, and to celebrate its 8th birthday, Twitter wants you to find your first tweet.

Unlike Facebook’s Look Back videos, a 62second “life story” pulled from your account pictures, likes, friend posts, and status updates set to the most optimistic elevator music you’ve ever heard, Twitter is inviting tweeters to find and collect their own content. All of it to encourage users to take a deep sigh and nostalgically ask, “remember when?

But 25, 10, and 8-years-old? It’s just not that old in the scheme of things, and a look back tool for a short period of time has limited value. Twitter’s first tweet tool turns up mostly painfully boring results across the board. Even top executives, business leaders, and entrepreneurs didn’t have their social media strategy together when they first joined.

A review of these first tweets shows most top executives joined to express their pride about the very act of using Twitter, and less about the self-promotional aspects the network is well-known for today: 

Jack Dorsey, co-founder, Twitter:

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, Facebook:

Steve Caseformer chief executive officer and chairman, America Online:

Martha Stewart, businesswoman, entrepreneur, and television personality:

Although, it appears some caught on quickly….

Donald Trump, businessman, television personality:

Twitter has seen an extraordinary rise tied to its exponential user growth of 140 percent over the last three years. While that growth has slowed down recently, not many companies can boast having 241 million potential clients at the tender age of eight. 

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