On March 21, 2006, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey typed the two seemingly forgettable words that launched a media empire – “inviting coworkers.”
Five years later, the microblogging site has become a leading force in international news reporting and the public voice for celebrities, world leaders and everyday users. According to Twitter’s official blog, nearly 500,000 new accounts are created each day and users send more than 140 million tweets daily—a staggering 1 billion tweets every eight days.
A report by Edison Research, which studies trends influencing businesses and elections, showed African Americans comprise a large number of those new Twitter users. “Twitter Usage in America: 2010” found that African Americans make up 25 percent of the site’s community, although Black Americans are about 12 percent of the country’s population. Likewise, the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project found African Americans and Latinos are twice as likely to use Twitter compared to their White counterparts.
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