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Happy birthday Twitter! A journey through Manchester’s history of first tweets

Getting banned from Turkey was probably not how the Twitter founders imagined that their networking site would be celebrating its eighth birthday.

Since March 21 2006 Twitter has provided people with yet another online mouthpiece – celebrities to politicians to Joe Bloggs can vent their spleens to however many followers they have managed to accrue.

But even the Twitter-savvy of the world had to dip their toe in the water with the uncertainty of composing their first ‘tweet’, including MM.

Naturally, most have got the hang of it, with Katy Perry currently topping the followers list on 50,531,561.

While over here Manchester, a few people needed to ease themselves in at the shallow end:

Of course Michelle Keegan has made good on that promise, securing 1.93million followers to date, while it’s surprising that Jack Rodwell doesn’t have more than 138,000 followers with all the bench-warming time he gets.

On the other hand, Sir Richard Leese is apparently still not sure what the convention is, with an online flock of just 1,940.

If you want a shining example of how a politician can swing public favour to their advantage in less than 140 characters look no further than Barack Obama, whose election campaign made full use of the newfound ability to reach out to potential voters.

The President’s account now has 42.1million followers, and in Manchester a few political figures have made attempts at adopting the same approach, with varying degrees of success – observe these tentative first steps from Lucy Powell and Suzanne Richards:

With followers numbering 9,898 and 2,440 respectively, it is not hard to see who won that particular race.

Twitter is one of those things that are viewed as brilliant by some and with disdain by others, giving anyone who feels that way inclined a way to be heard (another step forward for free speech) even if no one particularly wants to hear them (one of the many downsides of free speech).

According to some, there is a certain addictive aspect to knowing that whatever comes to mind can be typed out and then read by your online faithful, a sort of ego boost.

And wherever there are egos, there are footballers, who have taken to the Twittersphere to widen their popularity and/or parameters of self-importance.

Then there’s Wayne Rooney, who saw it as more of an alternative to texting.

And, as always, you can trust the Neville brothers to offer up some witty banter.

Yeah, banter.

At least people recognise that footballers’ tweets are generally devoid of any real substance, while there seems to be an unhealthy public obsession with the thoughts of the rich and famous – one that the celebrities are happy to indulge.

If anyone was wondering why Turkey decided to ban Twitter, perhaps these are some of the reasons why:

Then again, the inner-workings of Karl Pilkington’s mind are intriguing…

On the contrary, some choose to use Twitter as an outlet for actual news, with Amir Khan and Bez proving that getting your head bashed in for a living (punches and drugs) does not necessitate vacuous tweeting.

Luckily, for those looking for someone to follow who is not a moron and can offer an alternative take on current affairs, the comedians rode to the rescue.

But for all the breaking news, revealing commentaries and witticisms that are drifting around the ever-expanding Twittersphere – currently numbering around 645million – there are always those who are convinced that everyone is enthralled by their day-to-day activities.

This first tweet by a member of stratospheric boy-band factory products One Direction to his 19.9 million devotees sums the unfortunate side of freedom of expression.

Riveting.

Main image courtesy of Garrett Heath, with thanks.

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