The story of how twitter came about. It was simple idea, born out of a bunch of people sitting around brainstorming. It was allowed to evolve (note the discussion about settling on the 140 character limitation) and develop while interacting with users. I don’t completely understand why Odeo didn’t become a big hit to this day. It might have been ahead of its time, and then I think it missed a critical time and other apps, especially ones that included video, overtook it.

“I want to have a dispatch service that connects us on our phones using text.” His idea was to make it so simple that you don’t even think about what you’re doing, you just type something and send it.

via 140 Characters » How Twitter Was Born.