The Twitter co-founder has raised his public profile this year, also finding time to launch mobile phone payment service Square
Job: executive chairman, Twitter
Age: 34
Industry: digital media
Staff: 450
New entry
Life is tweet for Jack Dorsey, this year's highest new entry after another epoch-making year for Twitter, the social network he co-founded with Ev Williams and Biz Stone five years ago.
"Just setting up my twttr," Dorsey wrote in the first message posted on the 140-character system on 21 March 2006.
Fast forward to 2011 and the never-ending stream of news, opinion, links and information proved a vital means of communication for protesters in the Arab world, and made an ass of the law in England and Wales as thousands of users flouted Ryan Giggs's court gagging order.
Such is the power of mass mobile communication. Twitter has changed the relationship between media, politicians, fans and celebrities, and become a bountiful source of stories for journalists and traffic for the news organisations they work for.
"It's been Twitter's year," said one of our judges. But who to represent it on the MediaGuardian 100?
Dorsey was chosen after he took charge of the company's product development earlier this year as its new executive chairman, just pipping Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo to our list. He succeeds co-founder Williams, who was fifth-ranked in last year's MediaGuardian 100.
Despite his lower profile, Dorsey deserves credit for conceiving the Twitter idea and has been carefully grooming his public profile over the past year. He's also no less ambitious than Williams in his technological vision.
Before Twitter, Dorsey had already designed a software tool for couriers to stay updated, and while working for Stone and Williams at the audio service Odeo, he pitched an idea for a broader internet-based messaging tool. Keen to explore the nascent interest in social networking, the pair joined Dorsey to create Twitter and made him founding chief executive.
Memorably compared with Lennon and McCartney, Dorsey and Williams now barely speak to each other. But will they be discussing their relative rankings in this year's 100?
Twitter has now grown to more than 200 million accounts, though figures for active monthly users remain sketchy. Costolo has set about aggressively focusing the firm on revenues, expanding through promoted tweets – not dissimilar to Google's sponsored ads on search results – promoted trends and promoted accounts. Clients already include Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Disney, and revenues for 2011 are estimated at $150m.
With Costolo came a new, harder stance toward third-party developers. He replaced the relaxed openness of innovation with restrictions on services that might rival Twitter's own revenues streams and acquired the best apps, including Echofon, UberTwitter and UK-based TweetDeck. Costolo's strategy has undoubtedly impressed investors. Twitter's valuation is estimated at $3.7bn, though some trading on secondary markets points to a valuation of more like $7.8bn. Either way, Twitter's ubiquity, versatility and increasingly commercial focus is making it a powerful company and one that could be taken public in 2013.
Dorsey returned to the company on a day-to-day basis in March as its executive chairman. For the previous three years he had taken a part-time role and pursued his ambitions elsewhere, including the launch of Square in 2010. Using a small card swiper that plugs into an Android, iPhone or iPad audio socket, the Square app facilitates mobile payments, and it has been valued at $1bn.
With personal wealth estimated at $300m – he's Twitter's second-largest investor – Dorsey has even set his sights on becoming mayor of New York city one day. That might be easier to fulfil than another ambition credited to him in the media – that his product design vision could make him the next Steve Jobs.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/24/jack-dorsey-mediaguardian-100-2011
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