Twitter Success
Twitter was initially derided by some as a tool for the shallow and self-centered to broadcast the minutiae of their lives to the universe. Late-night comedy host Conan O'Brien even featured a segment called "Twitter Tracker" that mocked users of the service. In its early days, the site also suffered from frequent service outages. But as celebrities and CEOs alike began tweeting, Twitter was no longer the brunt of so many jokes. Suddenly the head of the "microblogging" movement, Twitter became a powerful platform for U.S. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008, as a method for updating their supporters while on the campaign trail.
Twitter vaulted to international prominence after the June 2009 presidential elections in Iran, when thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets to protest the claimed victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. When the government blocked text messaging and satellite feeds of foreign news coverage, Iranian Twitter users flooded the site with live updates. A U.S. State Department official even emailed Dorsey to request that Twitter delay its scheduled maintenance so that protestors could keep tweeting. "It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time in Iran. Could you keep it going?" said a State Department spokesman, describing the call. Twitter complied.