Bizzare Facts

When the social media platform known for brevity was first being developed, its name was even shorter than its posts. The service, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams, was initially called **'twttr'**—a vowel-less structure inspired by photo-sharing site Flickr, which was popular at the time. This peculiar name reflected the platform's core mechanics and the constraints of the technology that inspired it.

The original idea was that users would receive updates via text message, which was common in the mid-2000s. American SMS short codes often used five-character limits for brevity, influencing the 'twttr' name. The word 'twitter' itself—meaning a short burst of inconsequential information or the chirping of a small bird—was selected to describe the rapid-fire, low-stakes communication the founders envisioned.

While the vowels eventually returned and the name became **Twitter**, the evolution of the brand perfectly encapsulates its origins in early mobile communication technology. The name change represented a shift from a purely technical concept to a global social network, but its core function—rapid, brief dissemination of thoughts—was inherent in the original, truncated title.