Twitter came to life on March 21, 2006 when co-founder Jack Dorsey's account (@jack) automatically sent out the first tweet, which read: "just setting up my twttr."
Dorsey followed it up with the first "human-generated" tweet: "inviting coworkers."
Since then, more than 170 billion tweets have gone out worldwide, and Twitter has 500 million users, according to Dashburst.com, a website that monitors the social media industry. Officially, Twitter has only said it has "well over 200 million" users.
Some more facts about a global phenomenon:
- Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) has the most followers with 44,418,729, (as of 10 pm last night) , followed by Katy Perry (@katyperry) with 42,603,233 and Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) with 40,094,580.
- US President Barack Obama (@barackobama) is fourth with 36,493,643 followers; the announcement of his re-election victory in November 2012 was re-tweeted 802,624 times.
- The average Twitter user has 208 followers and spends 170 minutes on the site every month.
-There are more than 200 million active Twitter users. Eighty percent of all users access Twitter on mobile devices.
- China is the country with the most Twitter users with 35.5 million, according to Dashburst.
- About 20 million Twitter accounts are believed to be fake.
