Public Interview with @Jack, Founder/Inventor of Twitter
A month ago, I attended an awesome tweetup at Temple club in a so called “movement building” around SoMa area, hosted by ZipCar and Twitter. Twitter inventor and founder @Jack, Jack Dorsey was the keynote speaker. I was able to “live tweet” the entire conversation (mostly). Looking back a month later, it’s still very interesting and refreshing to read. Check it out. (The Q&As are the in the reverse order starting from the last Question, since zipCar was the host, don’t be surprised to see bunch of zipcar related questions.)
As a twitter app developer, what twitter app should I write?
@jack: search, anything to do with search
What effort has twitter done to save earth?
@jack: global environmental…we got rid of water botter… San Francisoc’s tab water is superb. And we use it…we tweet good things
What is your favorite twitter app
@jack: supporting the Eco system..my favorite…can’t answer that…so many..
Would Twitter sell?
@jack: we have so much work to do… It doesn’t make sense to give up, we aim being sustailable… This is our baby…this is we focus.
Example of cool use of twitter
@jack: small businesses like lunarPark café offers discount on twitter in real time
Where did term “tweet” come from?
@jack: tweet never come fm twitter , it’s fm user, it entered twitbase until 2 weeks ago, after 3 yrs
How did the official name “twitter” come out?
@jack: to start it, we were thinking – what’s the word for people who tweet…naming in computer science is hard…so the 1st name was tweech….later we found “twitter” in dictionary: Twitter is the “short burst of info”. That is perfect. We were surprised that twitter.com was still available.
So, what is “twitter”?
@jack: twitter is NOT about micro-blogging…NOT social network…it’s media in real time: lowering the barriar: moving faster than others
Where do you see the innovation coming from in the future?
@jack: innovation in healthcare and financial industry is much needed
When did you start to invent?
@jack: as inventor…I tried to invent stuff since I was 4 yrs old, wanting to invent wall pocket
What other languages will twitter support?
@jack: …Japan is the 2nd largest market…Spain will get short code in next 6 months
If you are drunk, what song would you sing? And How much do you weight?
@jack: if I were drunk, I probably will sing David Bowie, weight 145 lbs
How do you use twitter for what?
@jack: smart phone-loving SMS, loving search….what’s keeping you use twitter is the interestingness, like utility.
Would twitter get banner ads on site?
@jack: No banners
How would twitter make money?
@jack: …There are so many potential opportunities out there. For example, users ask for legitimacy-badge; twitter has done the work to verify that, this is one way to make money…(he did not mention the search ad revenue in the future)
Have you seen the Flutter video? What companies do you admire and why?
@jack: flutter? Can’t answer it…I admire Apple…they have very well paced product rollout, there are lot of patience from Apple. Facebook’s product roll out is also paced well, not sure if it will workout (Financially).
How’s Twitter’s team?
@jack: At the beginning (of twitter project), people was the missing notes…I found the best team to put everything together.
How did you come up with the twitter idea?
@jack: Inspiration created twitter…I have always been interested in how city works…bike messengers…track activity in real time, dispatch taxi.
What’s in the store for twitter?
@jack: User has the answer, I am not the right person to answer…features are pushed by users
What are the interesting cities you like?
@jack: NYC has lot of innovations going on. And NYC is cheaper than San Francisco right now; Barcelona is similar to San Francisco, loving it.
How do you use zipCar?
@jack: zipCar is great for startup guys! You get a car, drive to valley, pitch to investor, and come back up to the city, all in a zip;)
What are the similarities between twitter and zipCar?
@jack : For example, it’s easy to get business account on zipcar and twitter. Zipcar has a personality…We are both about sharing “stories” and “social experiences” using common utility. (twitter and car)…and I joined zipcar before starting twitter; 90% of twitter employees don’t have car.
