Happy Fifth Birthday Twitter!

According to the Twitter blog, this week sees in their fifth birthday and it was this time in 2006 when a small team of people started working on a prototype of the microblogging service. It was in fact March 21, 2006, when Jack Dorsey (@jack) sent the first Tweet, and since then the site has continued to rocket to the Twitter we know today.

There have been some staggering figures in these first five years since the creation of Twitter, however I have included the stats from the original post which I think say it all.

The interesting thing from my point of view will be where Twitter goes next, and whether it can maintain this success or whether it has reached it's natural peak. With the recent introduction of various ways of monetising the service, with marketing options such as promoted tweets, and promoted trends, I do believe there are a few tricks left up the sleeve of the Twitter folk yet. I'd be interested to know what you think, and how you think Twitter will expand on the success of the first five years?

#tweets
3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.

1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.

50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.

140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.

177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.

456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).

6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.

#accounts
572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.

460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.

182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.

#employees
8. 29. 130. 350. 400. Number of Twitter employees in Jan 2008, Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011 and today.



Pic - Twitter Birthday Cake

Happy 50th Birthday MINI!!

Yesterday every one's favourite British brand turned 50, celebrating fifty years since MINI first drove off the production line.



Pic 1 - MINI Email announcing 50 year birthday


To celebrate the birthday in the UK, all the best bits of the brand's fifty years have been pulled together into a nice little microsite which give fans of the brand a chance to look over the old ads, a competition, other firsts from 1959, as well as a more detailed look at the car's history, and all the best bits from the big birthday bash 'MINI United' back in May.



Pic 2 - MINI '50 year birthday' site


The birthday as expected has also been celebrated Worldwide with the release of the below series of videos to celebrate the milestone called “Rebel without Pause” which focuses on MINI fans and drivers all around the world and their personal experiences with the brand.



Video 1 - MINI 50 years - Rebel without Pause. (part.1)



Video 2 - MINI 50 years - Rebel without Pause. (part.2)


Related Posts:
MINI United Celebrates 50th Birthday
MINI IPhone App - Openness
MINI Clubman Viral - 'Have you seen that?'

Apple App Store Turns 1 (a good excuse for a fact or two)

Happy Birthday to the Apple's iTunes App Store which turns 1 today. Apple has celebrated the fact by highlighting it on the iTunes front page, and putting together this page (below) with a rainbow arrangement of apps, similar to the Pulsing Wall of iPhone Apps posted last month. In the full spirit of all things app related I thought that it was the perfect excuse for some app related facts (as much for your amusement, as for giving myself a place to find them all again in the future).




Apple iTunes App Store Trivia:

1) The App Store first opened its doors on the morning of July 10th 2008

2) The most expensive app sold in the App Store was the 'I Am Rich' app released in August 2008, this was "a work of art with no hidden function at all", with its only purpose being to show other people that they were able to afford it. It cost a whopping £599.99 ($999.99). The application was removed from the App Store the day following its release, on August 6, 2008, however Six people had allegedly already bought it before it was pulled.

3) The one billionth app downloaded was "Bump", created by Bump Technologies, was downloaded by Connor Mulcahey, age 13, of Weston, who was hailed the grand prize winner of Apples one billion app countdown contest.

4) US blog 'Busted Loop' revealed after some research that in order to buy all 55,732 apps that were available as of 7th July 2009 you would need to fork out $144,326.06 (An average of about £1.60 per app to you and me).

5) In May 2009 Pinch Media analyzed 30 million iPhone app downloads and discovered that only 5% of users will open either a free or paid app 30 days after the initial download.


Related Posts:
Apple Celebrates 1 Billion App
Pulsing Wall of iPhone Apps

Lego 'Making History' Campiagn: Ali, Tank, and Brandenburg ads

Here are a few ads from the Lego 'Making History' campaign which I've seen today, and so thought I'd share them with you all.



Lego 'Making History' Campaign: Ali advert



Lego 'Making History' Campaign: Tank advert



Lego 'Making History' Campaign: Brandenburg advert

Google Homepage Celebrates Tetris 25th Birthday

Today Google celebrates the 25th Birthday of Tetris, the 80's hit game for Nintendo, created on June 6, 1984. In the only way they know how Google have created one of their trademark logo variations (shown below) paying tribute to the computer game, voted second place in IGN's "100 Greatest Video Games of All Time" in 2007.



Pic - Google Homepage Celebrates Tetris 25th Birthday


Below is the old ad for the game, which after countless variations still remains as popular in its simplicity today as ever.


Video - Classic Tetris Advert


Happy Birthday Tetris!

MINI United Celebrates 50th Birthday

MINI is officially 50 years young this year, and to celebrate MINI United is coming to the UK. The MINI United festival is a celebration of all things MINI, and takes place every two years with previous events in Misano, Italy and Zandvoort, Holland. 2009 will also see the largest MINI United event to take place to date with MINI fanatics travelling from all across the globe to join in, held at Silverstone and taking place from May 22nd to 24th.



Guests such as Paul Weller, Calvin Harris, Chris Thompson, Raygun, and Twisted Wheel will be entertaining over the weekend, with a host of events for everyone from die hard MINI fans, to adrenalin junkies. There is also a MINI United community set up, which also includes everything from festival programmes, competitions, as well as maps and further information of the weekend.

Adidas Originals Celebrates “60 Years of Soles and Stripes”

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the iconic 3-Stripes mark Adidas have unveiled a fresh collection that celebrates its brand’s rich heritage and lifestyle credentials set to launch this Spring. To coincide with the unveiling of the new 60th anniversary collection Adidas have launched a new Global Brand campaign, which is in a 'House Party' setting (The theme of their “60 Years of Soles and Stripes” at Milan Fashion week).



The 60th anniversary Adidas Originals 'House Party' TV ad creative brings together a host of stars including David Beckham, Katy Perry, Missy Elliott, Mark Gonzales, Lady Gaga, Estelle, Kevin Garnett, and Young Jeezy all under one roof to the music of 'Beggin' by MADCON.



Adidas are also offering, together with MTV the chance for people to enter a competition to invite 60 friends to a party of a lifetime by proving they are the Host with the Most, through the Adidas FaceBook Page and download the 'Host with the Most application'.



Fans of the Adidas brand may also be interested in the fact that there is even a cameo by company founder Adi Dassler who makes an appearance within the 'House Party' ad.

Zodiac Race - Onitsuka Tiger campaign

This is the latest campaign by Japanese brand Onitsuka Tiger, to celebrate their 60th birthday. 'The Legend of the Zodiac Race' is the main premise behind the 60th birthday celebrations, which takes the form of the Legend of the Jade Emperor of ancient Japan holding a race to decide the order of the Zodiac calendar, 13 animals competing for 12 places.



The race takes place on a funky Onitsuka Tiger trainer shaped island with many different obstacles for the competing animals to overcome. The island of which can be explored in full on the website, along with a host of other interesting features. These include the history and making of the 'The Legend of the Zodiac Race' (shown below), a Zodiac calculator, a very cool '60 years in 60 seconds' movie, and much more.



This is a very funky website, which echoes everything users would expect from the brand, it is a smooth site with a fantastic array of colours, with the content ensuring users will be on there for a while... well I definitely was!



Enjoy!