Flickr helped inspire Twitter’s early code name, “twttr.”
Twitter’s founders were searching for a short, memorable identity for their new text-messaging service in 2006. Flickr, the photo-sharing website known for dropping vowels from its brand name, provided a prominent example of that naming style. The team adopted “twttr” as the project’s early code name.
The name also fit the technical environment of the time. American SMS short codes were commonly five digits long, so a compact five-character name seemed appropriate for a service built around mobile messaging. The domain Twitter.com was already unavailable, which was another reason the shortened form was useful during development.
The project eventually acquired Twitter.com and changed the service’s public name to Twitter, reportedly about six months after the initial launch of twttr. The first public version appeared on July 15, 2006, and Jack Dorsey had posted the first message, “just setting up my twttr,” on March 21. Picasa, Photobucket, and Instagram were photo-related services, but they did not inspire this particular code name.