BitTorrent turns 12 years old today, and it’s safe to say that it has revolutionized the Internet.

“My new app, BitTorrent, is now in working order, check it out here,” Bram Cohen wrote on a Yahoo! message board on July 2, 2001.

It was the first time a working copy of the BitTorrent code had been made available to the public, but the initial response wasn’t exactly overwhelming.

“What’s BitTorrent, Bram?” was the one reply he received on the board.

Despite this underwhelming response, BitTorrent was born, and in the weeks and months that followed more people started to become aware of its potential.

The music-sharing community Etree was one of the first paces where its full capacity was tested in the wild and hundreds of websites quickly followed, most notably The Pirate Bay.

Over the years many artists have learned that BitTorrent is a great way to share their work with the public, and companies such as Facebook and Twitter have started to use it too.

As of today, roughly a quarter billion people use BitTorrent every month, and there are no signs that the continuous growth will be put to a halt in the near future.

Who would have thought that 12 years ago?

Happy Birthday!