Twitter turns nine today

In celebration of Twitter’s ninth birthday today, Jack Dorsey thanked journalists for being the second group to adopt the platform. And he opined about the importance of journalism to a functioning democracy.

4/After the tech early-adopters, journalists were next to take to Twitter. They used it as a source, to break news, and to link their work.

— Jack (@jack) March 21, 2015

3/Journalists play a critical role in our society: keep the world honest and balanced. They are true servants of the people.

— Jack (@jack) March 21, 2015

In this vein, earlier this month, the Pew Research Center analyzed how Twitter and Facebook as part of the local news ecosystem.

Thanks to Robert Scoble (@scobleizer), I’ve been on Twitter since April 2007. It has shaped how I interact with the digital world and it remains one of my favorite digital hangouts.

Why Twitter?

In January, Pew Research Center reported demographics of digital network spaces.

Some 23% of online adults currently use Twitter, a statistically significant increase compared with the 18% who did so in August 2013. Twitter is particularly popular among those under 50 and the college-educated.

On its fifth birthday, Jack tweeted a history of the platform