TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours…
Written on 18th September 2008
65 COMMENTS 
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
A little more than 24 hours ago we posted a bookmarklet here titled TwitterKeys and then all hell broke loose. Here is what happened before we launched it and what has happened since.
On Tuesday evening, just as I was getting ready to go home, I noticed a Tweet on Twitter with a symbol in it which I hadn’t seen before. I copy pasted the symbol and Tweeted it:
Sander (@sandervdv) was working next to me and said “Hey, just open your Character Palette. There are tons of symbols there that you can copy paste”. I immediately did and then replied “Very cool, but kind of hard to find. Can’t we just put them all in a floating browser window so you can easily copy paste them while you are Twittering?”. Sander smiled and said “Sure, and I can even write a Bookmarklet so you can easily access it”.
Then I left the office and went home. At 8pm I opened my laptop and found Sander’s Bookmarklet code in my Inbox. I did a quick test with the help of a few Twitter users to see which symbols would work on all platforms and by 10 pm I uploaded the files, wrote a simple post with the details and launched the whole thing by Twittering the following line:
I ♥ this ☛ http://tinyurl.com/5hpf4f ☺
Immediately I noticed people starting to play with the characters and flowers, comets and stars flying all over Twitter. Within a few hours the Twitter founders found out about TwitterKeys and twittered about it:
Biz Stone (Twitter.com Co-Founder & 16,680 followers):
“Trying out TwitterKeys ☺ which helps you put little icons in your tweets ♥”
http://twitter.com/biz/statuses/923898532
Evan Williams (Twitter.com Co-Founder & 18,650 followers):
“♺ @biz’s post about http://bit.ly/twitterkeys. Neat! ”
http://twitter.com/ev/statuses/923901604
Then other famous people started talking about it:
Howard Rheingold (3,908 followers)
“I ♥ this ☛ http://tinyurl.com/5hpf4f ☺ via @bomega”
http://twitter.com/hrheingold/statuses/923879515
Leo Laporte (55,837 followers)
“I ♥ Twitterkeys. ☛ http://snipurl.com/3r09l ☚”
http://twitter.com/leolaporte/statuses/924264132
So within a few hours these 4 Big Twitter users promoted Twitterkeys to their combined 95,075 followers. The result? About 15,000 unique visitors to the original blog post within 24 hours, 60+ diggs, lots and lots of TwitterKeys on Twitter, reviews on 150+ blogs and a nice spike in RSS Feed subscribers…
Today we launched version 2 of TwitterKeys which displays even more characters. If you haven’t installed it yet do it now:
Drag this link to your browser
bookmarks toolbar: TwitterKeys
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[...] Read the full story here:http://thenextweb.org/2008/09/18/twitterkeys-the-first-48-hours/ [...]
[...] I invented TwitterKeys last week and it became the most popular post on The Next Web blog, ever! Made it to Techcrunch, Digg frontpage and got tweeted by Twitter founders, and several ‘members’ of the top 10 most popular twitter users: http://thenextweb.org/2008/09/.....-48-hours/ [...]
★140 characters too little sometimes☹ I found a ✔ link called “TwitterKeys” ☞ http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd Now I’m ☺. ✍ me if you ☝ it – ✌
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@Allyeska http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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The power of Twitter
http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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TwitterKeys? ♬ ✈ ♛ ☭ ☮ http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours
How I added ♥ ✈ ☺ ♬ ☑ ♠ ☎ ☻ ♫ ☒ ♤ ☤ ☹ ♪ ♀ ✩ ✉ ☠ ✔ ♂ ★ ✇ ♺ ✖ ♨ ❦ ☁ ✌ ♛ ❁ ☪ ☂ ✏ ♝ ❀
http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours
How I added ♥ ✈ ☺ ♬ ☑ ♠ ☎ ☻ ♫ ☒ ♤
http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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☺ i ♥ twitterkeys http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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@indieauthor http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours… http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours… http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours… http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours… http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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RT @mrken777: TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours…http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd (seriously tweeple, ✔ this out…you’ll ♥ it…v 2 has more ☺ ☎ ∞ ✄’s!)
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RT @mrken777: TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours… http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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TwitterKeys: the first 48 hours… http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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♬♬ Rocking out to Jethro Tull (thanks TwitterKeys for the icon): http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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Twitterkeys is pretty cool tool. http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd ☺
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@natashawescoat Twitter Keys: http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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@miscellaneaarts Oh! Excellent! If you want Twitter icons, http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd Includes hearts!
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@misterpatches you’ve got to copy and paste it from a character palate http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd install the bookmarklet, pg 3
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@chimilord no pues yo ni se bien como poner esos: http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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✌ ☮ ☯ wicked awesome! http://tinyurl.com/6h2hkd
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