March 21 marked the ninth anniversary of the first tweet ever sent via Twitter by the company’s co-founder, Jack Dorsey. Twitter’s first tweet: “just setting up my twttr.”

The website was originally named Twttr, since changed and known as Twitter. Besides Doresey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone were also responsible for the creation of this social media website. Originally, these three programmers worked at a failing podcasting company called Odeo Incorporated located in San Francisco, California. They came up with the new website idea, Twttr, to save their fledgling podcast company.

The name Twitter was inspired by Flickr, the photo sharing service. The dictionary definition of Twitter is “a short burst of inconsequential information.” Dorsey believed that to be the perfect name because, “that’s exactly what it is.”

The original concept for the website was a way to send text messages to peoples’ cell phones. By sending a short code from your phone, you would be able to send your local information, your mood, or anything else you wanted to share with someone else.

Initially, there was no limit to message length. When it went public, the 140 character limit was adopted. The founders chose this number because a text message limit was 160 characters and they also wanted room for the person’s name as well as the username of the person writing the tweet.

Twitter did not go mainstream for several years after the company went live. However, after a few years, the site took off and people embraced this microblogging platform. Today, almost 650,000,000 Twitter accounts are registered and 58,000,000 tweets are sent everyday.

Regina Dominican students have welcomed this social media tool. So, in honor of the anniversary of the #firsttweet, we have compiled some of the first tweets that Regina students sent out.