inspiration from Twitter scribble: "I hope it thrives" said Jack Dorsey

[Darren Dirt]

for those who need encouragement to persist with their creative or business endeavors, sometimes it takes time...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackdorsey/182613360/

twttr sketch

On May 31st, 2000, I signed up with a new service called LiveJournal. I was user 4,136 which entitled me a permanent account and street cred in some alternate geeky universe which I have not yet visited. I was living in the Sunshine Biscuit Factory in Oakland California and starting a company to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the web.

One night in July of that year I had an idea to make a more "live" LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. Akin to updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it. For the next 5 years, I thought about this concept and tried to silently introduce it into my various projects. It slipped into my dispatch work. It slipped into my networks of medical devices. It slipped into an idea for a frictionless service market. It was everywhere I looked: a wonderful abstraction which was easy to implement and understand.

The 6th year; the idea has finally solidified (thanks to the massively creative environment my employer Odeo provides) and taken a novel form. We're calling it twttr (though this original rendering calls it stat.us; I love the word.ed domains, e.g. gu.st/). It's evolved a lot in the past few months. From an excited discussion and persuasion on the South Park playground to a recently approved application for a SMS shortcode. I'm happy this idea has taken root; I hope it thrives.

Some things are worth the wait.

[Mr. Analog]

Ugg, that brings me back to about 2001 or so when me and 3 other guys were going to put together a site... I think we met twice?

[Darren Dirt]

Ugg, that brings me back to about 2001 or so when me and 3 other guys were going to put together a site... I think we met twice?

... but enough about 4th semester project in CST! /rimshot

[Mr. Analog]

Ugg, that brings me back to about 2001 or so when me and 3 other guys were going to put together a site... I think we met twice?

... but enough about 4th semester project in CST! /rimshot

Actually I'd been working for a few years by then, things were pretty dry at ISC when the last contract ran out, we were running on fumes for several months so a few of us decided to get together and see if we couldn't make a side-project that could take off into something (how hard could it be?)

Turns out: pretty hard if you have no direction.