--- description: 8 years in two minutes title: An Illustrated History of Twitter in Two Minutes image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # An Illustrated History of Twitter in Two Minutes by [Justin Charity](/author/justin-charity/) ## Justin Charity Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 21, 2014 7:18 PM CUT by [Justin Charity](/author/justin-charity/) ## Justin Charity Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 21, 2014 7:18 PM CUT Just in time for Twitter’s eighth birthday this week, tech website Mashable [animated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzRkszaGBbY "undefined") the popular social media service’s exponential growth and global integration over the years — from founding, to now — with a sketch illustration video that features infographics and TwitPics of history. The illustrator, Bob Al-Greene, draws faster than I tweet — and that’s saying something. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/33856/an-illustrated-history-of-twitter-in-two-minutes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/33856/an-illustrated-history-of-twitter-in-two-minutes/"},"headline":"An Illustrated History of Twitter in Two Minutes","datePublished":"2014-03-21T19:18:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:08:02.571Z","description":"In honor of the site's eighth birthday","url":"https://time.com/33856/an-illustrated-history-of-twitter-in-two-minutes/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Tech","Social Media","twitter","Jack Dorsey","tweet"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Charity","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/justin-charity/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/33856/an-illustrated-history-of-twitter-in-two-minutes/","name":"An Illustrated History of Twitter in Two Minutes"}}]}] ```