Who's @ First?
When I was a kid I read a story about someone tracking down the origin of jokes.
The idea of "who was the first to get this idea" always stuck with me. Who thought up bread, for example? I can see where alcohol would have happened accidentally: you have some fruit juice sitting out and it turns to alcohol. (Though why anybody would have drunk it the first time eludes me...) But bread requires yeast, and measurements. Ok, ok... you start with flat bread or pancakes, which sort of make sense. And yeast does occur naturally under the right circumstances. But why bake it? Why eat it?
This sort of "spontaneous combustion" happens all the time in our world. Somehow, somewhere, an idea generates, and somehow, some way, it gets passed along, but more importantly, it gets adopted. People get it. They use it. (There is a whole interest in, and discussion of memes, or ideas that catch hold and pass along with seemingly little effort. Some think that this happens because the time is right - there are really no "new" ideas, it's just a matter of when the right time for an idea comes along.)
Take, for example, the @ symbol when referring to a person or a person's statements.
This actually began with Twitter: "Twitter, though, may rely on user-generated innovation more than any other company. Early on, Twitter users started referring to others by typing the @ symbol before their name. For example, Biz Stone, a Twitter founder, recently wrote about his wife: “Wow, @Livia just took her homemade vegan lasagna out of the oven — I’m hungry!”
“That one really took us by surprise,” said Evan Williams, Twitter’s chief executive and a founder. Since then, Twitter has added a section to the site where people can see every time they are mentioned with the @ symbol. It began hyperlinking the names so others can click on them to see the subject’s profile page." (From The New York Times.)
Now I see this symbol crop up all over - for example, on Blip.fm, if you want to refer to another person's blip of a song, you use the @ symbol. And I see it even in IMs and texts when quoting another.
Who, I wondered, was responsible for this originally? Why the @ symbol? Why did it seem "right" and catch on? (I can't argue that it seemed right; I found myself using it to designate a person's comments even before I realized it was being done outside of Twitter by others.)
I did a bit of digging, and so far I can't find who was the originator. But I'd love to find out. So if anybody has an inside info, let me know!
The idea of "who was the first to get this idea" always stuck with me. Who thought up bread, for example? I can see where alcohol would have happened accidentally: you have some fruit juice sitting out and it turns to alcohol. (Though why anybody would have drunk it the first time eludes me...) But bread requires yeast, and measurements. Ok, ok... you start with flat bread or pancakes, which sort of make sense. And yeast does occur naturally under the right circumstances. But why bake it? Why eat it?
This sort of "spontaneous combustion" happens all the time in our world. Somehow, somewhere, an idea generates, and somehow, some way, it gets passed along, but more importantly, it gets adopted. People get it. They use it. (There is a whole interest in, and discussion of memes, or ideas that catch hold and pass along with seemingly little effort. Some think that this happens because the time is right - there are really no "new" ideas, it's just a matter of when the right time for an idea comes along.)
Take, for example, the @ symbol when referring to a person or a person's statements.
This actually began with Twitter: "Twitter, though, may rely on user-generated innovation more than any other company. Early on, Twitter users started referring to others by typing the @ symbol before their name. For example, Biz Stone, a Twitter founder, recently wrote about his wife: “Wow, @Livia just took her homemade vegan lasagna out of the oven — I’m hungry!”
“That one really took us by surprise,” said Evan Williams, Twitter’s chief executive and a founder. Since then, Twitter has added a section to the site where people can see every time they are mentioned with the @ symbol. It began hyperlinking the names so others can click on them to see the subject’s profile page." (From The New York Times.)
Now I see this symbol crop up all over - for example, on Blip.fm, if you want to refer to another person's blip of a song, you use the @ symbol. And I see it even in IMs and texts when quoting another.
Who, I wondered, was responsible for this originally? Why the @ symbol? Why did it seem "right" and catch on? (I can't argue that it seemed right; I found myself using it to designate a person's comments even before I realized it was being done outside of Twitter by others.)
I did a bit of digging, and so far I can't find who was the originator. But I'd love to find out. So if anybody has an inside info, let me know!
Comments