The History of Twitter in Profile Pages: 2006 to 2015

Looking at the slick impact of today’s desktop Twitter profile page, there’s little hint of the fact that the site grew out of a simple mobile text messaging app. But grow it certainly did, and with Twitter now staggeringly influential in world media, it’s fascinating to trace things right back to the humble beginnings and chart the site’s aesthetic evolution. So, in one epic post, here’s the history of Twitter, visually represented in the changing face of its profile page, from the inception year of 2006, to the time of writing. Most captures have been edited to reduce the height of the timeline, but all efforts have been made to retain the essence of the layout…

2006

Heading the post is the profile page of co-founder Jack Dorsey in its early November 2006 incarnation. Apart from the primitive look of the page, there are several points of note. Tweets were referred to as Updates, there was no total for Favorites displayed, and most interestingly, the Following total was referred to as Friends. Even today, many Twitter users and third party apps substitute the word Friends for Following, but in order to see the “Friends” terminology in official use on the profile page, you have to go right back the site’s birth year of 2006.

More 1992 Microsoft Windows Desktops

Looking back at a few more of the classic vintage desktop design themes from 1992′s Windows 3.1. This comes in addition to the Plasma Power Saver and Hotdog Stand recollections I posted previously.

The post opens with a custom dark theme, displaying deep blue windows on a black desktop. The Program Manager layout was the central access point for all facilities on the computer. It lacked the Windows Start Menu, which didn’t see daylight until the next major redevelopment of the software – Windows 95.

The Tumblr Homepage: 2007 to 2011

If you fancy a bit of Tumblr nostalgia, here’s a look back at some of the site’s Home/Login page (www.tumblr.com) designs from the time of launch in winter 2007, to the summer of 2011.

The first design predated the site’s official launch, and is seen below as it looked in early January 2007. It also remained through the launch period (February 2007) and into the spring of that year…