#HappyBirthday Twitter ! Ten years of #Twitter !

Jack Dorsey sent the first Tweet on 21 March 2006. At that time, he had no idea that his creation was set to become one of the most important and most popular social media networks in the world. Initially intended to be a microblogging platform for Dorsey and his colleagues. 

Today Twitter boasts an active user base of more than 332 million, with approximately 6,000 tweets now being sent every second.

Twitter has undoubtedly changed the way people communicate online, most notably with its 140-character format that, for better or worse, urges users to be judicious with their words. The social platform has also become a go-to for following world events in real time.

Since its conception, Twitter has changed the way in which we consume media and has become increasingly influential over the news agenda itself: more than being just a distribution platform.

Today Twitter plays a crucial role in how news is gathered and reported from the start. As the website celebrates its 10th birthday we take a look back at some of the defining moments in Twitter's history.

Twitter's decade of hashtagging dominance began on March 21, 2006, though no one knew then exactly how pervasive the site would become. We now live in an age where it's hard to find anything at all that isn't prefixed with a # or @. Here's the first tweet ever sent on that fateful day, posted by none other than Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey :

Though the platform is loved by many, the last few years for Twitter have been turbulent. Its share price has hit new lows time and again since the start of the year. Executives have been leaving the company in droves. And investors have expressed doubt about Dorsey, who works 18-hour days running Twitter and the payments company, Square, simultaneously.