Twitter Paper

Abstract

Take a look around you, and you are more than likely to see the world around you engrossed in the world of social networking sites. One site in particular is taking the Internet and mobile devices by storm! You cannot get on the Web or even turn your TV with seeing hash tags and trending topics; and whom do we owe this all to? Well if you guessed Twitter then you guessed correct! No other site has gained such attention and followers quite as fast, nor continued to have such a long-lasting effect like Twitter has had.

In this paper, we will take a look at the overview and structure of Twitter over the past three years. We will take a look at the staff and go over their hiring and lay-off trends. We will then take a look at their organizational structure and see if it is aligned with the general leadership principles found in our text. Finally, we will make a projection about the future of Twitter.

From the outside looking in, Twitter is a fun and functional way to keep in touch with friends, the latest celebrity gossip and news. However, what lies beneath the surface does not even begin to uncover the trials and tribulations that the company has undergone and experienced over the past three years.

Overview of Twitter

Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, in San Francisco. It is an online network that is used “in nearly every country in the world” in over 20 languages, with over 500 million registered users in 2012, with more to come. Twitter owns and operates a platform that enables users to broadcast short text messages and follow other users. The company also provides an enterprise-level integration solution for email marketing (Bloomberg, Businessweek, 2013). “Twitter is built on open source software, from the back-end to the front-end. Twitter engineers use, contribute to and release a lot of open source software. We of the Twitter Open Source Program Office support a variety of open source organizations...