How Twitter has become the people's voice on the eve of its fifth birthday | Technology | The Observer

How Twitter has become the people's voice on the eve of its fifth birthday | Technology | The Observer

Blame Stephen Fry. In Twitter the preening polymath found his true calling, sending out an ever changing and oddly riveting mix of self-promotion and stream of consciousness as he tweeted his every thought and photo. His thoughts on Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, a picture of a parrot, a call for charity in Sri Lanka, Stephen in a balloon hat, all mixed in with his Wildean wit: "Streets of London fantastically full of young people. Either it's half-term or truancy in this country is running wildly out of control." Millions came to watch, millions more joined in. You may scoff but we are all Stephen Fry now.

Twitter is five next month. There are now 190 million people using the micro-blogging website, sending 65 million messages of 140 characters or fewer around the world each day. Knockers may still dismiss the service as silly but Twitter – or some form of it – looks set to be with us for some time to come. For its legion of fans Twitter is part of a social media revolution that is reordering the way the world communicates, shaking up politics, business and social life and even, some argue, fuelling and co-ordinating historic upheavals from Iran and Tunisia to Egypt. The revolution will be twitterised.