Based on the format that the Twitter API uses, Kellan Elliott-McCrea created a search engine for the first year of Tweets.  The first year consists of 20,000,000 Tweets and can be searched by username and query.  If a user hadn’t joined Twitter prior to March of 2008, they won’t show in OldTweets.

A query on a sample term will provide a chronological display of the first Tweets:

The format to use when searching is by user is [userid:USERNAME query].  Here’s a look at @ev talking about Twitter (then still called twttr):

This provides a nice look at just how expansive a Twitter archive search could be.  Current Twitter search is quite limited historically, and if you were one of the early adopters, give OldTweets a whirl to see what you were doing 5 years ago.

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Twitter

About The Author: Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that specializes in social media and search marketing services and web-based application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 6+ years and specializes in Social Media Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn. See more articles by Greg Finn

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