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How Twitter Got Started …

Found this old email here. Amazing to see Twitter’s early days of planning and execution. This is an email from co-founder Jack Dorsey to Noah Glass which spurred  the 8 day initial development of Twitter. See what the interface looked like in its first weeks as well below. (pre Middle East revolutions).

From: jack
Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2006
Subject: twttr work
To: Noah Glass
twttr stories

Monday

registering by giving mobile # and confirming with PIN
Basic tests for that exists and passes. Could you check the view for
it, Jack? Thanks!
registration through email invite with PIN

login with an existing mobile # by entering PIN

Tuesday

user can update status
user can invite friends by inputing phone #s
user can get status for friends and self
user paginates through status timeline in 12 hour increments

Wednesday

user can allow site to remember their login information (convenience)
user can see all public updates
user can choose to receive status change notifications via Email for
followed users
user can get statistics about followers and pings

user can see status marked as public

Thursday

user gets rotating sms hints that admins input
user can view status updates of friend’s friends with correct
permissions (marked public or user knows phone #)

user can see own history or friend’s history individually

Friday

user can choose to receive status change notifications via Email for
followed users
user can change phone #, name, and PIN
user can delete account

LATER

SMS only registration
registration through SMS invite with PIN
user can get help
user can protect their updates with an optional secret word, by
default, updates are global
user can choose to receive status change notifications via SMS for
followed users

possibly re-send lost PIN for registration (SMS is flakey)

 

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