For its 8th birthday, Twitter finds your first tweet
With first-tweets.com, Twitter is making it easy for users to track down their first (and often awkward) first post.
The shadows of mobile phone users are cast onto a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo in this photo illustration from Sept. 27, 2013.
Reuters
To celebrate its eighth birthday, Twitter has introduced a feature that allows users to find their first tweet (however embarrassing that first tweet may be).
The whole thing works pretty simply: Using your Web browser, navigate over to First Tweets. If you're already logged onto Twitter, your first Twitter message will automatically pop up. If you're not, you can use the search bar to find your user name. Or you can plug in the Twitter handle of a famous politician such as Barack Obama, or an athlete, such as Jacoby Ellsbury, who confessed in 2011 that he was "still figuring out this Twitter thing!"
"Millions of prolific tweeters have made Twitter an exciting, fun and powerful place to connect with others," Twitter's Gabriel Stricker wrote in a blog post announcing the feature. "But each of you had to start somewhere: Today we’re taking a look at some choice first Tweets – first Tweets that sparked a conversation, used imagery to tell a story, or revealed unfiltered self expression."
Or just showed how much you had to learn about the new platform. Because, let's face it: For most of us, our first tweet was a little like our first step – tentatively, bumbling, a little awkward. ("Is this thing on?" "Can anyone hear me?") But don't turn red just yet. As Chloe Albanesius of PCMag.com points out, even the hoi polloi of tech culture had to start somewhere.
Albanesius has collected the first tweets of 10 tech luminaries, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk, and let us assure you that these folks didn't sound particularly suave, either. Our favorite entry comes from Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder, who used his first 140 characters to illuminate readers on his exercise routines.
"Rare massage (for me), then dance practice," he wrote. "No pain, no gain. Awkward but fun, this dancing. I still can't do Macarena."
Neither can we, Steve.
(Editor's note: The original version of this story had the wrong link to Twitter's First Tweet feature. The real link is here.)