Twitter 是一个广受欢迎的社交网络及微博客服务的网站，允许用户将自己的最新动态和想法以移动电话中的短信息形式(推文)发布(发推)，可绑定IM即时通讯软件。所有的Twitter消息都被限制在140个字符之内。2006年，博客技术先驱创始人埃文·威廉姆斯(Evan Williams)创建的新兴公司Obvious推出了大微博服务。在最初阶段，这项服务只是用于向好友的手机发送文本信息。
2012年2月，Twitter称有能力针对不同国家和地区实施网络内容过滤，引发关注。10月，Twitter收购美移动应用开发工具厂商Cabana。
2013年9月，Twitter进行首次公开募股;11月7日晚，Twitter股票在纽约证券交易所挂牌，股票代码“TWTR”。开盘45.1美元，较发行价大涨73.46%，目前市值接近400亿美元。
2014年3月7日，Twitter支付3600万美元收购IBM900项专利，终结双方的专利权争议。
Twitter is one of the most popular social networking and micro-blogging services in the world. It allows account users to send 140-character updates on anything they choose, and for people to follow different users. It was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey and now has more than 100 million users. Dorsey describes the word “twitter” as being “just perfect”. He said it means "a short burst of inconsequential information… and that’s exactly what the product was.” Twitter is used to keep in contact with friends, to network and keep up-to-date professionally, and as a source of world news. One analyst described 41% of twitter messages as being “pointless babble”. Twitter is one of the 50-highest-ranked websites and is rising steadily. It has enormous growth and revenue potential.
