About This Quiz
It's taking over the world 140 characters at a time. Some people use it to gather news. Some treat it as a race to get the most followers. It's Twitter, but how much do you know about it?Twitter began as a side project for a startup company in March of 2006.
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Jack Dorsey got the idea for Twitter when he wondered if someone could build a simple but interesting application that would let a person know what his or her friends were up to at any given time.
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Twitter's valuation reached $1 billion in September 2009. That's staggering for a company that was famous for not having a clearly-defined business plan.
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Ashton Kutcher threw down the gauntlet in 2009, challenging CNN in a race to 1 million followers. Ashton won the unofficial contest.
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The Twitter "fail whale" showed up often during Twitter's first growth spurt. Along with a brief message about the service being down, the page shows a cheerful whale supported by birds.
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The Shorty Awards go to the best Twitter users in categories like tech and music. The Twitter community nominates and votes for the users they like best.
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Nielsen Wire said that only 40 percent of Twitter users stuck with the service. The other 60 percent gave Twitter a try but abandoned it soon after.
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The original prompt said "What are you doing?" Perhaps Twitter changed the message after too many people typed "I'm using Twitter."
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James Karl Buck twittered the word "arrested" as Egyptian police took him into custody. Friends and colleagues were able to contact U.S. authorities who arranged Buck's release.
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Mike Massimino, aka astro_mike on Twitter, sent the first tweet from space. His message read "From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!"
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