Evan Williams on what's behind Twitter's explosive growth

http://www.ted.com In the year leading up to this talk, the web tool Twitter exploded in size (up 10x during 2008 alone). Co-founder Evan Williams reveals that many of the ideas driving that growth came from unexpected uses invented by the users themselves.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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[Michael Kozlowski]

Twitter is something that again shows the true face of our present society's attention seeking unstable egos. We have to know everything about everyone so we can compare our lives to others just to see if were worth more, less or about the same. Is this really how we want to spend our time? Besides, live news feeds were invented a long time ago. If you have something important to say to someone you gain enough courage to meet them personally or at least give them a call. Absolute crap.

[punkslashhippy]

twitter's hugely successful but i have no interest in it.

interaction is better on a personal level, and if possible; over a pint : )

[samala51]

While the technology is awesome to have it's exposed and strengthened our collective ADD and self-consciousness

[Forlorn Reaper]

i use both Facebook AND Twitter..

they both have different uses, facebook is more of a personal touch.. while twitter is more connecting to people you barely know on a personal level while having no awkwardness.. and many other stuff..

[Britney2009beast]

i love how this guy makes twitter sound so awesome. but we the people know exactly what living in a world of facebook and twitter is really like. it's lonely. i wanna live in a world where the only tweets we listen to is from actual birds.

[Noor Al-Hajri]

Twttr Rules!

[Jason T. Wiser]

Twittering or Tweeting

[Jim Jones]

Haha, agreed but so is facebook and myspace as well lol

[Jim Jones]

Yeah but Facebook actually has a deal with Twitter for use of their TwitFeed technology.

[Peter S. López]

Good video. Just saw it. I have missed so much as much as I Tweet about Global News and stuff @Peta_de_Aztlan

[sixstring1991]

i dont think he's the founder. he's the businessman with money who bought out the company at an early stage