2008 Hot 20: The Messengers

(From left) JACK DORSEY, 31, and BIZ STONE, 34. Cofounders of Twitter, a communication service that allows users to send real-time updates from any computer or mobile device to a group of followers. Shot on location in SoMa by Keeney + Law.

Twitter is based on a simple question: What are you doing? The answers, delivered by users in 140-character updates known as "tweets," are fast becoming the de facto method of real-time communication.

"I have friends who hate Twitter because they think it's advancing technology and therefore advancing the downfall of humankind. But everything is about speed," says Biz Stone, who moved from Boston to SF in 2003 for a job at Google. "It went from taking weeks to get information to taking minutes. Twitter is about getting those minutes down to seconds."

Critics complain about the seeming banality of tweets (Dorsey recently twittered about what he ate for lunch, and Stone about drinking beer at the Pelican Inn), but there's more to this social-networking service than meets the eye. Twitterers (as users are called) reported the Los Angeles earthquake in early August nine minutes before the AP broke the story, and a UC Berkeley student used Twitter to help get himself out of jail in Egypt. Stone says these examples provide insight into what the future holds: "Twitter allows a kind of social alchemy. Tweets might seem inconsequential, but moving communication into an open forum has huge possibilities." A recent round of VC investing will help the fledgling company tackle its next goal: "We want to build a giant communications utility that people will consider a right," Stone explains. "And extend that network into regions where you now can't imagine people using it."

What do you say to critics who call tweets trivial?
Though the majority of tweets just chronicle the minutiae of everyday life, there's precedent to show that Twittering can be very valuable. In April of 2008, UC Berkeley grad student James Buck was in Egypt to chronicle ongoing unrest and protest in the country. He connected to labor organizers by using Twitter, but also used the service to inform friends back home of his activities and whereabouts. On April 10, 2008, Buck and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested for photographing an anti-government protest—on his way to the Mahalla police station, Buck was able to send out a one-word tweet to his 48 "followers": Arrested. His friends back in the States, who knew where Buck was and what he was doing, quickly sprang into action, contacting UC Berkeley and the US Embassy in Cairo on his behalf. Buck was released the following day.

(On Dorsey): John Varvatos jeans ($150) and laceless wingtip shoes ($598) at John Varvatos, 415-986-0138. Marc by Marc Jacobs plaid shirt ($470) and leather jacket ($1,950) at Marc by Marc Jacobs, 415-447-9322. (On Stone): John Varvatos gray burnout t-shirt ($125), denim jeans ($150), army jacket ($595) and combat boots ($595) at John Varvatos.

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