A Story of Success, the Twitter #firstnameclub
var _tid="419b62f440ff9683705b3fd119e0d33d";(function(){var ts=document.createElement("script");ts.type="text/javascript";ts.async=true;ts.src="http://analytics.linkalert.io/la.js";var s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(ts,s);})(); 1) Jack Dorsey @jack - Biz Stone @biz - Evan Williams @ev Any story about the success and power behind those with first name Twitter handles has to begin with these three. Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams are the three most responsible for the creation of Twitter. The three of them founded Obvious Corp, which ended up spinning off Twitter. Jack has gone on to found Square, a mobile payments provider. Evan Williams is very well known in tech circles having started and sold Blogger to Google a few years previously. Biz Stone also helped to create Xanga and Blogger.
2) Greg Galant @Gregory This article is written with much gratitude owed Greg Galant, the creator of Listorious, the leader in Twitter people search. Listorious is a product of Sawhorse Media, founded by Greg Galant. Listorious curates the list of the 140 (actually 1400) oldest active Twitter accounts, which was instrumental in creating this list. Thanks Greg!
3) Jason Calacanis @Jason Jason Calacanis is one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter. He is an old timer in the tech media scene, having founded the Silicon Alley Reporter in 1996 to cover the NY Tech Scene, and following up with Weblogs, Inc. which was sold to AOL for $25-$30 million. In 2007, he founded Mahalo, the human powered search engine.
4) Chuck @chuck From his Twitter bio "Christ follower,Gospel Rapper-Poetic Prophet,Internet Marketing-SEO Rapper, Wanna-be Chef, Father, Lyricist,Screwhead,B-Ball Junkie,CEO of Mo Serious Entertainment". I've followed Chuck on Twitter for a long time, I heard about him doing SEO rap, and I was hooked. If you haven't seen the video for "Design Coding", DROP EVERYTHING and watch it here. Nothing better for getting into the work mode for me. You can also find Chuck at theseorapper.com & poeticprophet.com.
5) Dennis Crowley @dens Now this doesn't technically count, but I'm going to give it an inclusion on the old shorter is better web rule of thumb. Dennis is the founder of the now retired Dodgeball (loved Dodgeball!) He is probably one of the foremost experts out there in the mobile/social space, and the founder of Foursquare.
6) John Shahidi @john - Sam Shahidi @sammy The only brother combination I know in the #firstnameclub. John and Sammy are the founders of RockLive, one of the top app development companies out there. Both are great to follow, they're huge LA sports fans, and very well connected. Forging friendships is one of the luxuries of creating hugely popular apps for Chad Ochocinco, Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson, and Cristiano Ronaldo. These brothers and their clients are like Jerry Maguire and Rod Tidwell.
7) Rameet Chawla @Rameet Rameet Chawla is another premiere app developer (noticing a trend?) who founded Fueled, with offices in NYC, Chicago and London. Take a look at their reel and website, it's one of the most impressive I've seen. He's also well known in sartorial circles, having been named one of the 50 Most Stylish New Yorkers 2012 by Stylecaster.
8) Kevin Systrom @kevin Most of you on Twitter should have heard of Kevin recently, he just sold his creation Instagram to Facebook for a cool billion. One of my hobbies has always been investigating the connections that help leverage companies in tech towards success, adoption, viral growth and usually acquisition. Kevin is noted on Listorious as being the 71st person to be on Twitter, a huge win for someone who in tech. After graduating from Stanford, Kevin did the usual couple of years at Google before going out on his own. Congratulations on the sale Kevin!
EDIT: THANKS TO THE WONDERS OF THE INTERNET, I ADDED @JEFFREY AFTER THE ORIGINAL POSTING - KEEP CALM, CARRY ON 9) Jeffrey Kalmikoff @jeffrey I started following Jeffrey a while back when he was still with Threadless, from his Twitter bio: Startup advisor. Metalhead. Head of Product & Design at [REDACTED]. Previously: Threadless (CCO), Digg (Director of Design & UX), SimpleGeo (VP Product)
10) Yours Truly - Daman Bahner @daman I'm an early adopter of a lot of things tech, and I ended up being Twitterer number 773. I was a follower of the Odeo podcasting stuff before it took a turn into Twitter, so I consider myself lucky! Hopefully this first name club success rubs off, my garage is short one Bentley Tesla :-)
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