Do you ever wonder what a Wiki is? Where did Twitter get its name? How on earth did the term blog come to be? If you lie awake at night pondering the origin of these names, look no further, just read my blog, or should I say, web log. According to Wikipedia (don’t worry, I’ll cover Wiki next), the term weblog was coined by Jorn Barger one of the earliest bloggers whose blog Robot Wisdom was an influential pioneer blog. Nowadays blogs take on many forms such as online diaries, video blogs, photo blogs and microblogs or very short posts.
Now on to one of the more favorite social media words to say, Wiki! This term was coined by Ward Cunningham, the first developer of Wiki software back in 1994. Wiki is actually the Hawaiian word for “fast”. Cunningham discovered this term during his travels to he Honolulu International Airport where he took the Wiki-Wiki shuttle bus that runs between the airport’s terminals.
Wiki-Wiki shuttle bus at Honolulu International Airport
According to a New York Times article describing the origination of Twitter, the name didn’t just fall out of thin air and land on a branch. The name comes from vehicle dispatch, as cars and trucks maneuvering around town provide reports or squawks to each other stating what they’re doing at any given moment. John Dorsey looked at these systems through the eyes of the Web and wanted to provide a tool where anyone could “squawk” from anywhere. The name Twitter originally started as Stat.us, but John needed a name that better represented a constant buzzing in your ear so he thought of “twitch” which eventually led to Twitter and alas the social media site was born.
Original sketch for Stat.us which eventually became Twitter
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May 16, 2010 at 8:10 am
Michele B
Thanks for the blog about wiki and twitter. I always wondered where those names came from. I wonder how they came up with Facebook?!
May 17, 2010 at 2:22 pm
mediachitchat
Yes I have wondered where these names came from. Very interesting! I had no idea that a Wiki-Wiki was a shuttle bus in Hawaii. As for Twitter, I kind of assumed it was an attempt to make a name that meant “a constant buzz.”