Your last tweet about Justin Bieber was historical – whether you like it or not.
The Library of Congress announced Wednesday that it plans to house every single public tweet – billions! — since Twitter’s inception in March 2006.
The national archive made the announcement – where else – on its own Twitter feed.
An accompanying blog post appeared to melt a Congressional server.
Luckily, more details could be found on its Facebook page:
Just a few examples of important tweets in the past few years include the first-ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (http://twitter.com/jack/status/20), President Obama’s tweet about winning the 2008 election (http://twitter.com/barackobama/status/992176676), and a set of two tweets from a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt and then freed because of a series of events set into motion by his use of Twitter (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964) and (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/787167620).
It’s an unusual move, but not unprecedented. The Library of Congress has been collecting digital content since the 2000 presidential campaign, operates Web pages for Congressional members and currently holds “more than 167 terabytes of web-based information.” The Library also operates the digitalpreservation.gov Web site.
More to read:
Twitter: 25 Media Insiders to Follow Right Now
We Heard You: 10 MORE Media Tweeters to Follow
Ads Coming to Twitter
Size Doesn’t Matter: Why Ebert Beats Oprah on Twitter
Twitter Can Predict the Future of Movies
