A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the service we now call Twitter was a clumsy little SMS service that allowed users to message more than one person at a time. Today it's a global broadcast system for close to 300 million users, where everyone from @BarackObama to @JustinBieber to @WeedBro420 can capture an audience or hold a conversation if they'd like.
But here, on Twitter's big IPO day, we thought it'd be fun to revisit how some tech bloggers described the service back when it first launched in 2006. Remember, this is before most smartphones had touchscreens.
Here are TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington's first impressions of "twttr" when the service launched in July 2006. He found the idea "interesting":
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GigaOm's Om Malik, on the other hand, initially found it to be rather intrusive:
And finally — a few months later — here are some prescient insights from venture investor Chris Sacca, a former Googler whose impressive track record includes investments in Twitter, Uber, Instagram, and more:
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Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.