A NASA astronaut made Twitter history on Friday by sending the first tweet from outer space. Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer broadcast the following message directly from the International Space Station:
“Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! 🙂 More soon, send your ?s”
Take that, Neil Armstrong.
First Tweets: Space and Beyond
The first tweet from space happened thanks to a software upgrade rolled out by NASA this week. The upgrade gave Space Station astronauts direct personal access to the Web — something never before possible — using what NASA calls “the ultimate wireless connection.” Previously, tweets from astronauts had to be e-mailed down to Earth, then later posted to Twitter by ground-based workers.
Creamer’s inaugural space-tweet will undoubtedly be remembered. Plenty of other Twitter firsts, however, are more easily forgotten — and there may be a reason why.
Here’s a look at the first tweets sent by some familiar Twitter users. As you’ll see, most of them aren’t exactly monumental.
(Note: Famous tweeter @GuyKawasaki is not included in this list, mainly just because he sends out way too many messages. By my calculations, it’d take approximately 4,413 hours to sort through them all.)
Not-So-Famous First Tweets
• @ev (Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder)
“just setting up my twttr”
Evidently, he hadn’t yet set up his vowels.
• @biz (Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder)
“Ok we are in the car”
Well, it’s a step up from @ev’s first tweet — you’ve gotta give him that.
• @billgates (Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman)
“‘Hello World.’ Hard at work on my foundation letter – publishing on 1/25.”
Not nearly as exciting as the tweets Bill’s going to send in the future.
• @oprah (Oprah Winfrey, media mogul)
“HI TWITTERS . THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY .”
Odd; here I thought in the 21st century, we didn’t always type in all-caps. Who knew.
• @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher, insert-your-own-description)
“dropping my first tweet”
The first of many morsels of wisdom to be shared by Twitter’s golden boy.
• @PerezHilton (Perez Hilton, insert-your-own-description once again)
“Hi! This is the real me, bitches. I’m not on MySpace or Facebook, but I decided to start Twittering. Yee Haw!”
Another medium to keep up with Mr. Hilton’s musings — just what the world needed.
• @ParisHilton (Paris Hilton, sex tape star)
“in Vegas at the Hard Rock with my Prince…”
The only Hilton arguably worse to follow than Perez.
• @alyankovic (“Weird Al” Yankovic, musician)
“tweet tweet!”
Then, after a two-week delay:
“Since people are complaining I haven’t tweeted enough, here’s the entire text of ‘Moby Dick’ by Herman Melville 140 characters at a time.”
God bless Weird Al.
• @Starbucks (Starbucks, coffee company)
“Welcome to Starbucks Twitter land!”
Amazing they aren’t charging $4 per tweet yet, eh? Now, if only they’d incorporate that Starbucks menu translating technology into their Twitter stream…
• @ActuallyNPH (Neil Patrick Harris, actor)
“My first tweet, peeps. I apologize in advance for my slow learning curve. Nice to (sort of) meet you. It’s amazing how quickly 140 charac”
Well-played, sir.
• @KimKardashian (Kim Kardashian, professional celebrity)
“Hey guys it’s Kim Kardashian! I finally signed up for Twitter! There are a few fakes so just know this is the real me!!!”
At least Kim’s willing to openly discuss her fakes.
• @jr_raphael (JR Raphael, humble scribe)
“Have finally joined the Twittersphere! Like writing short sentences. Looking fwd to meeting & tweeting (but not in a rhyme all of the time).”
I’m not sure who this guy is, but I’d avoid following him if I were you.
JR Raphael is a PCWorld contributing editor and the co-founder of eSarcasm. He’s on both Twitter and Facebook; come say hello.