Today is Twitter's eighth birthday and to celebrate the occasion, the company has introduced a tool that lets you find the first tweet you sent on the social network.
To find out what your first tweet was, head here. Then enter your Twitter username and you'll be presented with the first 140-character tweet you sent.
To mark Twitter's eighth anniversary, we've collated a list of the first ever tweets of eight influential people in the UK tech industry.
Some are surprising, others not so much. One thing that brings them all together is that they all seem to have got to grips with the social network after a shaky start and should probably be followed immediately.
Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 and is now the director of the World Wide Web Consortium. He's also the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation and the Open Data Institute, a government initiative allowing anyone to access government data.
Berners-Lee's first tweet was directly related to using Twitter for the first time:
Ooops confusing user interfxce. And no phones on on stage with radiomikes.Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) October 22, 2009
However, now the IT wizard seems to have become accustomed to the site, has 165,000 followers and tweets (and retweets) about everything internet and data-related.
Dr Sue Black
Dr Sue Black is a British computer scientist and senior research associate at University College London (UCL). Black runs a blog to raise awareness and funding for Bletchley Park and has won numerous awards for her work and involvement in the campaign.
Black's first tweet was a little negative:
not looking forward to work tomorrowSue Black (@Dr_Black) June 3, 2007
Dr Black can now be found tweeting about women in technology and chatting to her 15,400 followers about anything and everything.
Phil Smith
Phil Smith is Cisco's UK and Ireland CEO and chairman of the UK Technology Strategy Board. He won the Mentor of the Year award at the Women of the Future Awards for championing UK women in schools and business. Smith has been working in the ICT industry for 30 years and has been instrumental in building Cisco's UK influence.
Smith's first tweet expressed his interest in the new service five years ago:
New to twitter - but interestedPhil Smith (@phsmithuk) February 13, 2009
He can now be found tweeting about his passion for cycling and asking his 2,000 followers about current trends in the tech industry.
Nigel Shadbolt
Nigel Shadbolt, professor of Artificial Intelligence and head of the web and internet science group at the University of Southampton is also chairman of the Open Data Institute. Shadbolt is working with Tim Berners-Lee to allow anyone to access data held by the UK government.
Shadbolt chose a tweet about his wife, designer Bev Saunders, to kick off his Twitter feed:
At home looking after Bev - and time to thinkNigel Shadbolt (@Nigel_Shadbolt) July 10, 2008
He has 5,700 followers and mostly tweets about innovations in the data space and advances in web technologies.
Elizabeth Varley
Tech Hub founder Elizabeth Varley has spent her career putting tech innovators in a position to get their message out to the masses. She's also a board member of Digital City Exchange - a five-year digital research programme aimed at digitally linking utilities and services within cities.
Varley's first tweet was short and sweet:
Back in London from trip to DC and NYElizabeth Varley (@evarley) March 20, 2008
Her account with 11,500 followers continues to be pretty personal, giving updates on what she's doing and responding to queries about Tech Hub.
JP Rangaswami
JP Rangaswami led the charge in getting social networks working for enterprises as chief scientist at Salesforce. He now often speaks about using open source and emerging solutions to improve information sharing in companies.
His first tweet was a personal one - explaining what he was doing:
surfing quietly while my son watches LostJP Rangaswami (@jobsworth) April 17, 2007
Rangaswami now has 11,600 followers and can be found tweeting about a varied range of subjects including technology, his personal life and beautiful pictures of sunsets.
Matt Brittin
Matt Brittin is Google's European vice president - although you wouldn't know that from his Twitter bio. His feed is pretty Google-heavy so it's no surprise his first tweet was:
Slow day? Fool Google Goggles into thinking you are a landmark. http://www.demoslam.comMatt Brittin (@MattBrittin) February 5, 2011
Brittin doesn't tweet often, but when he does, it's normally a retweet or something Google-related.
Eben Upton
Eben Upton is the inventor of Raspberry Pi and technical Director/ASIC architect for Broadcom. The creation of Raspberry Pi means every child can learn computer science at school because of the credit card-sized computer's low price.
Upton's first tweet was actually a retweet about Raspberry Pi:
Loving this @Raspberry_Pi case! http://t.co/xy319PgxShane Hudson (@ShaneHudson) May 11, 2012
He now uses his personal account to tweet replies to his 3,400 followers about a range of technology-related and personal matters.
