So I taught myself web design, and then in 1999 some friends of mine decided to start a company called Xanga.com, which was a very early kind of social network slash blogging community.
You curate information that you want to receive. It’s a lot different because I’m not asking you if it’s okay, I’m just saying I’m following your updates. That’s why I don’t think of Twitter as a social network.
I’ve probably overused this analogy of a flock of birds moving around an object in flight, but, in reality, it’s so simple, real time communication of individuals that allow for this super organism type of organism to happen.
I think that’s a really important role that people sometimes forget about, especially with all these newspaper shutting down and having trouble, where are all these stories going to go?
We actually created Twitter and Odeo at the same time. When we realized we didn’t really want to be running Odeo anymore we looked around for anyone who wanted to buy Odeo, but not acquire us as a technology. But people aren’t as interested in that.
This idea that the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact is being proven over and over again around the world nearly on a daily basis – and for Secretary Clinton to recognize that, I think, is a huge step.
