3 ms·

How did twitter start as an sms system without requiring phone numbers?

• whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  They pivoted away from being an SMS system and that became a legacy part of it, that still worked but wasn't essential. The part where Twitter was SMS only is like a footnote in its history.
  • O__________O 4y ago
    Point is that generally speaking databases rarely delete fields once added, especially field as valuable as a phone number; as such, my assumption is Twitter has had a field in their database for a user’s phone number since it was first released. Twitter’s been collecting phone numbers since at least late 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20061103054924/http://twitter.com/account/join https://web.archive.org/web/20061103054924/http://twitter.co...
  • Eisenstein 4y ago
    So what you are saying is that when they started they required phone numbers? As in, what the commenter I was replying to wrote was not true? The 'footnote' in history seems pretty important when the whole point is that ignoring it leads you to assume things that are wrong.