Ryan Greenberg

In 2007 I created my Twitter account in an Internet cafe in Santiago, Chile because I read on some blog that it was a big deal at SXSW. I spent some time deliberating between the username @ryangreenberg (which I use on a number of other services) and @greenberg. Eventually I decided on @greenberg because it seemed like being short was a big deal on Twitter. Just a few minutes ago I posted my 3,000th tweet on Twitter. Four years and a few thousand tweets later, not only am I still tweeting, but along the way I somehow ended up working for the company. What a ride.

Here’s a Harper’s Index-style look at my first 3,000 tweets:

• Number of tweets I sent between July 10, 2007 and February 27, 2012: 3,000
• Number of words written: 53,066
• Kilobytes of text: 302
• Median time between tweets: 6 hours, 43 minutes
• Average time between tweets: 13 hours, 32 minutes
• Longest time between two tweets: 84 days between tweet #1 (“Finally signing up with Twitter.”) and tweet #2 (“Wondering if there is something ironic about Superman bandaids.”)
• Most tweets in a single day: 13 on January 2, 2010, a top ten list of the best years of the decade
• Retrospectively, do I wish I sounded less whiny sometimes: a little.
• Number of URLs posted: 571
• Number of hashtags used in tweets: 155
• Number of @mentions used in tweets: 768
• Most frequently mentioned people: @MIGreenberg (40), @npdoty (36), @caitearly (21), @michaelischool (20), and @kevinweil (16).
• Number of OHs and quotes: 211

Tweet Length

• Number of tweets that are exactly 140 chars: 133 (about 4% of them)

Punctuation

• Periods: 4,705
• Single quotes, apostrophes: 1,839
• Double quotes: 1,618
• Commas: 1,560
• Colons: 1,421
• Ellipses: 143
• Em dashes: 110
• Semicolons: 71
• En dashes: 14

Topics

• Tweets that mention the New Yorker: 18
• Tweets that mention the Apple or OS X: 47
• Tweets that mention Twitter: 102

And here are a few of my favorites.

My shortest tweet—four characters—is how I let friends and family know my then-girlfriend’s response when I asked her to marry me:

Yes.

— Ryan Greenberg (@greenberg) May 23, 2009

And the next year when we tied the knot:

Hey @caitearly, I’m on campus. Let me know if you want to hang out or get married or whatever.

— Ryan Greenberg (@greenberg) October 2, 2010

A couple graduations:

It’s official: the sister is a college graduate. Congratulations!

— Ryan Greenberg (@greenberg) May 18, 2008

Graduation! Congratulations @MIGreenberg! twitpic.com/54atom

— Ryan Greenberg (@greenberg) May 29, 2011

And starting work at Twitter:

I’m going to start tweeting like it’s my job. And I’m delighted that, as of today, it is. Hi @twitter!

— Ryan Greenberg (@greenberg) June 14, 2010

I’m looking forward to the next kilotweet. If you are too, follow @greenberg over on Twitter.