Evan Williams (blogger) Information & Evan Williams (blogger) Links at HealthHaven.com

Evan Williams
Evan Williams
	; Evan Williams at Twitter office, December 2007
Born	March 31, 1972 (age 37); Clarks, Nebraska, United States
Residence	Berkeley, California, USA
Occupation	Businessman
Known for	Blogger; Twitter
	Website; http://twitter.com/ev

Evan Williams (born March 31, 1972) is an American entrepreneur who has founded several Internet companies, including Pyra Labs (creator of weblog-authoring software Blogger) and Twitter, of which he is currently CEO.

[edit] Early life and education

Williams grew up on a farm in Clarks, Nebraska, where he assisted with crop irrigation in summers. He attended the University of Nebraska for a year and a half, leaving to pursue his career.^[1]^[2]

[edit] Career

[edit] Early career

After leaving school, Williams worked at various technology jobs and start-up firms in Key West, Dallas, Austin, Texas and again on his family farm in Nebraska. In 1996 Williams moved to Sebastopol, California in Sonoma County to work for the technology publishing company O'Reilly Media. He started at O'Reilly in a marketing position but eventually became an independent contractor writing computer code, which led to freelance opportunities with companies including Intel and Hewlett-Packard.^[2]

[edit] Pyra Labs and Blogger

Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan co-founded Pyra Labs to make project management software. A note-taking feature spun off as Blogger, one of the first web applications for creating and managing weblogs. Williams invented the term "blogger" and was instrumental in the popularization of the term "blog".^[3] Pyra survived the departure of Hourihan and other employees, and was eventually acquired by Google on February 13, 2003.^[4]

Williams was named one of PC Magazine's "People of the Year" in 2004, along Hourihan and Paul Bausch for their work on Blogger.^[5]

[edit] Odeo

Williams left Google in October 2004^[6] to co-found Odeo, a podcasting company. In late 2006, Williams co-founded Obvious Corp. with Biz Stone and other former Odeo employees to acquire all previous properties from Odeo's former backers.^[7] In April 2007, Odeo was acquired by Sonic Mountain.^[8]

[edit] Twitter

Among Obvious Corp.'s projects was Twitter, a free social networking and micro-blogging service. Twitter itself was spun out into a new company in April 2007, with Williams as co-founder, board member and investor.^[9] In October 2008, Williams became CEO of Twitter, displacing Jack Dorsey who became chairman of the board.^[10] By February 2009, Compete.com ranked Twitter the third most-used social network based on their count of 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visits.^[11]

[edit] Personal life

Williams is a vegetarian.^[2] He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Sara Morishige. They have one child.^[12]

[edit] References

^ Williams, Evan (7 March 2009). "For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/jobs/08bosses.html?_r=1. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ ^a ^b ^c Malone, Michael S. (18 April 2009). "The Twitter Revolution". Wall Street Journal: p. A11. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124000817787330413.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ Baker, John (20 April 2008). "Origins of "Blog" and "Blogger"". American Dialect Society Mailing List mailing list. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0804C&L=ADS-L&P=R16795&I=-3. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ Gillmor, Dan (15 February 2003). "Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time". SiliconValley.com. Archived from the original on 24 March 2003. http://web.archive.org/web/20030324075343/http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000802.shtml. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ "People of the Year". 22 December 2004. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1744185,00.asp. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ Festa, Paul (5 October 2004). "Blogger founder leaves Google". CNET. http://news.cnet.com/Blogger-founder-leaves-Google/2100-1038_3-5397556.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ Malik, Om (25 October 2006). "Odeo RIP, Hello Obvious Corp". GigaOm. http://gigaom.com/2006/10/25/odeo-rip-hello-obvious-corp/. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ Marshall, Matt (10 May 2007). "SonicMountain acquires podcasting company Odeo, reportedly for more than $1M". VentureBeat. http://deals.venturebeat.com/2007/05/10/sonicmountain-acquires-podcasting-company-odeo-reportedly-for-more-than-1m/. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ Williams, Evan (16 April 2007). "Twitter, Inc.". Obviously. Obvious Corp.. http://blog.obvious.com/2007/04/twitter-inc.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ McCarthy, Caroline (16 October 2008). "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey steps down". CNET. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10068368-36.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ Kazeniac, Andy (9 February 2009). "Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs". Compete.com. http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
^ "@Evan Williams: It's a boy!". San Francisco Examiner. 11 August 2009. http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Evan-Williams-Its-a-boy-53007482.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[edit] External links

[edit] Speeches

Evan Williams speaking at Stanford

[edit] Interviews

[NYT_Ev-0] Williams, Evan (7 March 2009). "For Twitter C.E.O., Well-Orchestrated Accidents". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/jobs/08bosses.html?_r=1. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[WSJ_Twitter_Revolution-1] Malone, Michael S. (18 April 2009). "The Twitter Revolution". Wall Street Journal: p. A11. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124000817787330413.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[2] Baker, John (20 April 2008). "Origins of "Blog" and "Blogger"". American Dialect Society Mailing List mailing list. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0804C&L=ADS-L&P=R16795&I=-3. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[3] Gillmor, Dan (15 February 2003). "Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time". SiliconValley.com. Archived from the original on 24 March 2003. http://web.archive.org/web/20030324075343/http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000802.shtml. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[4] "People of the Year". 22 December 2004. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1744185,00.asp. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[5] Festa, Paul (5 October 2004). "Blogger founder leaves Google". CNET. http://news.cnet.com/Blogger-founder-leaves-Google/2100-1038_3-5397556.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[6] Malik, Om (25 October 2006). "Odeo RIP, Hello Obvious Corp". GigaOm. http://gigaom.com/2006/10/25/odeo-rip-hello-obvious-corp/. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[7] Marshall, Matt (10 May 2007). "SonicMountain acquires podcasting company Odeo, reportedly for more than $1M". VentureBeat. http://deals.venturebeat.com/2007/05/10/sonicmountain-acquires-podcasting-company-odeo-reportedly-for-more-than-1m/. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[8] Williams, Evan (16 April 2007). "Twitter, Inc.". Obviously. Obvious Corp.. http://blog.obvious.com/2007/04/twitter-inc.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[9] McCarthy, Caroline (16 October 2008). "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey steps down". CNET. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10068368-36.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[Compete-10] Kazeniac, Andy (9 February 2009). "Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs". Compete.com. http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

[11] "@Evan Williams: It's a boy!". San Francisco Examiner. 11 August 2009. http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Evan-Williams-Its-a-boy-53007482.html. Retrieved 16 August 2009.

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