Diffusion of Twitter

Of the multiple social media networks that have flourished and are still flourishing, Twitter is a free, universally used program that allows members to upload posts known as "tweets", follow other registered Twitter members, and access the site on multiple platforms and devices. Users are able to send private messages to one or multiple other users at a time, to include photos and videos within their tweets, and to view and discover trending posts and worldwide news stories. Created and launched in the United States during 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams, Twitter rapidly gained popularity. Currently, nearly fourteen years later, Twitter holds over 330 million users all over the world. One might wonder, how do four ordinary people create an idea that can be communicated to and adopted by so many? What did each of the 330 million individuals see in Twitter that caused them to incorporate it into their lives? Everett Rogers, a professor in communication studies, developed a theory expressed in his book, Diffusion of Innovations, that questions why, how, and at what rate new innovations are adopted and spread. Rogers proposes that four principal elements sway the widespread of a new idea. These elements are the innovation itself, communication channels, time, and a social system. In 2006, nothing else quite like Twitter existed. There were other social media platforms, but what made Twitter different was the ability for users to post short, quick statuses within a 140-character limit. This made people's statuses short and sweet, making it easy to keep tabs on what the people you follow are up to. Since this idea had never existed before, Twitter was considered an innovation people had never seen before. Adopters are what makes an innovation really take off. Anybody can adopt an innovation, whether it be individuals, businesses as a whole, or groups of people. The creators of Twitter connected with people to introduce their new platform to, who evidently found benefits to bringing it into their everyday lives, spreading Twitter to others who all did the same thing. The diffusion of Twitter continued through communication channels and the passage of time, in which more people adopted and spread knowledge of the innovation.