There's often an assumption that any given product was intended for the purpose with which it is associated from the moment of its conception. But sometimes things don't necessarily turn out as planned, as Twitter's origin demonstrates. The "SMS of the internet" started out as a program which was to be used internally at the podcasting company Odeo, after Jack Dorsey came up with the idea of crafting a system which would allow individuals to communicate with small groups. It didn't take long before the commercial applications became apparent, and the definition of Twitter, 'a short burst of inconsequential information,' was conceived (perhaps an appropriate description given the amount of nonsense people tweet). In an example of synchronicity, Twitter's origin bears a strong similarity to the internet itself, which also began as a system which networked researchers around the world before rolling out to the public many years later.
