Twitter’s co-founder and co-inventor doesn’t abide by the short text promoted by the micro-blogging website. He prefers to use proper grammar and sentence structure when sending 140-character messages.
“I’m old school,” Biz Stone said Thursday during an Afternoon MoJoe interview. “I’m just terrible at hashtags and all that other stuff.”
When Twitter users approach him with questions about the site, he often tells them to look at the “How To” section because he said he doesn’t usually know the answers.
“I built this system, but I’m not an expert in using it,” said Stone, who is also a filmmaker. “I’m actually not a very good Twitter user myself.”
This Internet entrepreneur, who emerged in the industry before the turn of the century, co-created Twitter in 2006. With its global network, the site has become bigger than he imagined.
“I can’t go to a movie or walk down the street without seeing the little blue bird I drew just for fun, or seeing a hashtag or an ‘@’ sign. It’s kind of surreal; that’s what it is,” Stone said.
The ability for users to transmit instantaneous information worldwide makes tweeting “faster than an earthquake,” he said. For example, a tremor could happen in San Jose, Calif., and people in San Francisco could receive a tweet with the information before they feel the ground shake.
He described Twitter as a “passion project” that he began using SMS–or texting–protocol to create an information-networking system.
And the 140 characters? The answer is “boring,” he admitted.
Be sure to watch other web-exclusive interviews and roundtable discussions right here in the Afternoon MoJoe section of the website.
Michele Richinick