Evan Williams is the Co-Founder of Twitter, the revolutionary 140-character microblog platform that is revolutionizing the way we communicate and do business. BusinessWeek said “Williams has a knack for figuring out how people want to keep in touch, even before they seem to know it themselves.”

While Williams is not a dynamic speaker, in terms of what he has actually done, he makes many platform performers seem like sideshows. In this video at TED, which comes with a translation in Japanese subtitles, he shares some intriguing glimpses behind the scenes of a quiet revolution in communication.

• Note that Evan Williams formerly worked at Google, where he invented eBlogger, one of the major free blogging platforms available.
• He helped launch Twitter as a side project in 2006 while working at Odeo, simply following a hunch.
  
• Twitter is based on what he describes as simple trivial concept, is that people enjoy being connected in real time despite distance.
• Indeed, a Twitter message which he sends out from the TED conference goes out to his 60,000 plus subscribers in an instant.
• Although it was conceived as a broadcast medium, he says that many of its uses were not anticipated, and a number were invented by users of the platform.
• For example, Twitter has been used in emergencies, elections, and events, and has generated over 2000 Twitter applications thanks to API software, so that users help invent, evolve, and shape the system.
• It has been used in a wide range of applications from helping people track good prices at gas stations, communicating with customers, and raising funds online.
• Many speakers now set up Twitter events to match their real events, so that people involved can all participate, wherever they are in the world.
• Some speakers, such as Guy Kawasaki, actually have started speaking in sound bytes as a courtesy to the many people in their audience who are Twittering during his talk, and spreading his message to tens of thousands of people in real time.
• He ends his talk by saying that he has “learned to follow a hunch, but never assume where it will go.” Modest words masking a powerful and practical intuition.
• Here you can read a TED bio of Evan Williams.