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Jack Dorsey biography

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Jack Dorsey is an American businessman best known as the founder of the social networking site Twitter.

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Suddenly the head of the "microblogging" movement, Twitter became a powerful platform for U.S. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008, as a method for updating their supporters while on the campaign trail.

Twitter vaulted to international prominence after the June 2009 presidential elections in Iran,

when thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets to protest the claimed victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinajad. When the government blocked text messaging and satellite feeds of foreign news coverage, Iranian Twitter users flooded the site with live updates. A U.S. State Department official even emailed Dorsey to request that Twitter delay its scheduled maintenance so that protestors could keep tweeting. "It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time in Iran. Could you keep it going?" said a State Department spokesman, describing the call. Twitter complied.

Beyond Twitter

2010, Twitter had more than 105 million users who together tweeted some 55 million times a day. Jack Dorsey, however, had set his sights on other projects. He became an investor in the social networking company Foursquare and launched a new venture, Square, which allows people to receive credit card payments through a tiny device plugged in to their mobile phone or computer. Twitter may have already revolutionized the way that people communicate, but Dorsey isn't done yet. "In terms of technology, we're going to see a better and more immediate experience around the everyday things we do in life," Dorsey said.

© 2013 A+E Networks. All rights reserved.

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