WEBVTT - TechStuff is Older Than... 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:14.000 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.919 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.720 how Stuff Works, and I love all things tech and 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.280 we are continuing our celebration of tech Stuff's tenth anniversary. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:29.320 Now all full disclosure here. I recorded an episode about 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:34.040 services and companies that are younger than tech Stuff, and 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.160 I intended it to be one episode, but then when 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.680 recording ended, we realized that I was creeping up over 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.360 an hour and that's a really long episode, so we're 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:45.320 breaking it into two parts. So what you are about 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.520 to hear is the first part of that two part 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.600 series where I really talk about some interesting things that 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.639 have happened since the launch of tech Stuff. So we're 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.800 gonna start with some products that and companies that did 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:01.400 not exist at that time. And the first thing I 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.600 want to talk about is Apple's iPad. And this was 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.200 a doozy. If you've are a long time listener to 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:14.039 tex Stuff, you know what I thought about tablet computers. 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.199 I remember talking with Chris Palette, the original co host 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:21.559 of tech Stuff, about Apple's rumored tablet computer. So before 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.679 it even had a name before it launched. I was 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.800 convinced that if the company came out with a tablet, 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.360 it would just be a fad and after a short 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.800 while it would disappear, because why would you need a tablet. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.920 I mean, I get a smartphone. I understand smartphones. You 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.039 can put that in your pocket when you don't need it, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.560 you can carry it around wherever you go. And if 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.640 you want something that is a more of a rich 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.680 involved experience, why not use a computer like a laptop 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.240 or a desktop. I just couldn't see a good use 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.480 case for a tablet. Now this was largely because I 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.360 was looking at it from my own personal perspective. It 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.360 just seemed like a computer made more sense for anything 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.240 beyond what you would use a smart own for. And 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.960 I thought the iPad will never take off, And boy 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.320 was I wrong. So the iPad came out in April, 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.360 and it did quite well, at least for the first 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.880 few years. But then in fourteen things started to slide 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.200 and there was a year on year decline and iPad sales, 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.680 with every quarter showing a decline up until the first 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.040 quarter of eighteen that's the year that I'm recording this, 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.520 and then we saw a modest increase of two point 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:33.240 one in sales, so not a huge jump obviously, But 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.280 maybe what that tells us is that a lot of 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.840 the folks who needed or wanted a tablet got one 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.000 early on. Then they saw very little reason to buy 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.160 a new one. So new ones come out and they 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.880 just thought, well, I've already got one that works well enough, 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.040 i don't need to upgrade yet, as opposed to a 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.760 phone where you might upgrade every year or every two 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:56.200 years at any rate. The iPad showed once again that 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.040 Apple can make a market when no one else can 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.119 make a market for that particular product. Because tablet computers 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.600 were not brand new when the iPad came out, they 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.919 did exist before Apple's iPad, they just no one had 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.480 really found a a good consumer market for them. They 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.680 were all very narrow use cases, like in the medical 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:20.760 field or for people who were on remote work locations. Uh. 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.200 Now the iPad had become a must have consumer device 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.720 thanks to Apple. Next, I'm gonna talk about bing as 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.880 in the search engine. Microsoft launched Bing in two thousand nine. 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.840 It was a competitive search engine, really meant to go 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.720 up against Google, and in fact, Microsoft would often talk 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.720 about bing's search results compared to Google's, and the speed 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.119 at which it would return search results, and the relevance 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.280 and all that sort of stuff. According to stat Counter, 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.880 Being accounts for about three point two four percent of 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:59.520 search engine market share in May. Google accounts for ninety 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:05.160 point one four Now that's global data, so obviously, Microsoft being, 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:10.600 while it does have some market share, trails far far 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.320 behind Google. However, that also was a thing that did 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.919 not exist back when tech Stuff first started. Venmo another product, 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.359 or service rather that launched after tech Stuff did. Venmo 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:27.159 launched in two thousand nine from co founders Andrew Cortina 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.400 and ekrom magden Ishmael. Originally, it was a service that 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.840 would let you send a text message to music groups 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.359 and receive an MP three via email in return, but 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.440 that changed pretty dramatically. The co founders of the company, 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.400 who had attended college together back in two thousand one, 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.839 ran into a bit of a problem when one of 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.920 them stayed with the other but forgot his wallet, so 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.720 the other one covered him, and when the the uh 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.680 borrower decided they wanted to pay back their friend, he 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.240 did it with a check because there was no easy 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.520 way to send money to his friend, there was just 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.560 no way to easily trans transmit money to him without 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.680 having access to a bank, and the two decided to 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:13.880 pivot Venmo into a payment transaction service that could allow 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:18.120 easy payments between individuals. A company called Braintree would buy 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.600 Venmo in two thousand twelve for twenty six million dollars 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:26.560 a princely some PayPal would then go on to acquire 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:31.560 brain Tree for eight hundred million dollars in so Venmo 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:33.840 is now part of PayPal. And I find that a 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.880 lot of people are surprised by that. I met young 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.880 folks who said, oh, no, I would never use PayPal. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.200 I use Venmo. And I said, well, Venmos owned by PayPal, 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.440 so technically you're still using PayPal. And they were surprised. 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.440 But yes, Venmo is still very active. It is a 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.960 useful service. It makes transit transmitting payments very very easy 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.440 between individuals. Uh So I actually really like that service 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.880 a lot. Four squares another thing that did not exist 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.840 when tech stuff launched back in two thousand eight. Uh 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.280 it was technically built in two thousand and eight, but 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.080 it did not launch till two thousand nine. Dennis Crowley 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.760 and Navine Selva Durai built four Square after working on 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.880 a similar project earlier called Dodgeball. This is a location 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.880 based check in service. Now Google acquired Dodgeball back in 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.760 two thousand five, and eventually Google chose to shut down 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.120 the service, and so the co founders went on to 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.200 create a similar service that would let people check into 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.120 locations using a mobile device and you could share your 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.320 location with your friends. So it's kind of like a 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.120 social network that was location based. But in two thousand fourteen, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.520 four Square would shift that feature to a companion app 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.520 called Swarm. Was right around the time with my wife 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:51.599 decided she was never going to use four square again, 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:56.440 and four Square became more of a recommendation engine for restaurants, shops, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.359 and activities based off of user location and user preference. So, 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.000 in other words, you could use four Square to get 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.520 a recommendation for maybe a restaurant in an unfamiliar city 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.320 that happens to be near your area and it happens 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.600 to fall within the certain parameters that you prefer. Maybe 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:14.640 you really like Indian food and says, hey, there's this 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.560 cool Indian place. It's two blocks over. You should go 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:19.800 check it out. But the check in stuff, all the 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.360 stuff that you would use to check into a location 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.560 and eventually acquire the the mayor position of that location 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:28.800 if you checked in enough. All of that got shifted 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.120 over to SWARM and I don't know what the numbers 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.440 are right now for Swarm and four square, like, what 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.800 what's the user engagement? How many people are using it? 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.400 Was there a drop off or have they stayed strong? 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.880 I know that my wife and I both stopped using 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.000 it right around that time, but that's totally anecdotal and 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:51.119 therefore not at all reliable as far as analysis goes. 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.880 Speaking of analysis, then we have Wolf from Alpha. We 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.480 actually did an episode about Wolf from Alpha way back 0:07:57.480 --> 0:07:59.240 in the day, Chris Poulette and I did when it 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.360 first launched. Wolf from Alpha is a computational knowledge engine, 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.160 so it looks a lot like a search engine, but 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.640 that's not exactly what Wolf from Alpha does. It launched 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.000 in May two thousand nine, and it answers factual queries 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.600 by computing results from curated data. So it has access 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.280 to tons of information and it can pull relevant information 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.920 based upon what you ask it, and it answers the 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.840 query directly. It doesn't provide you a list of search 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.160 results where you'll find the answer. It will tell you 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.320 the answer. So for example, I could type in the 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.680 question how far away from Earth is Polaris, and Wolf 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.360 from Alpha would tell me it's four thirty point nine 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.800 light years away, Plus it would give me more information 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.880 in units like parsecs, kilometers, and miles. Or I could 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.600 ask it what is the area of a square with 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.439 fourteen foot long edges and it would tell me the 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.960 answer is one square feet or eighteen point to one 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:56.440 square meters. So, in other words, you can ask Will 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.959 from Alpha these questions. It will return the actual relev 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.200 an answer instead of sending you a list of links 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.280 where you could find the answer if you searched through it, 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.720 which is pretty useful for very particular types of queries. 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.360 It doesn't work for everything, but it works really well 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.680 for these kinds of applications. I have more to say 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.400 about some of the services and companies that launched since 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:22.520 tech Stuff became an official podcast in just a second, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.880 but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.560 Another thing that launched after tech Stuff was Snapchat that 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.280 launched in September two thou eleven, and boy howdy, the 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.800 Snapchat story is one I will have to cover in 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.720 a full episode sometime in the future. Now here's the 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.600 summarized Snapchat story that I will expound upon in much 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.200 more detail when I do cover this company. Three college 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.240 buddies get together to create an app that would allow 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.480 users to send photos to each other, and the photos 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.160 would only stay active for a limited time before they 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.520 were deleted. And the original app was called Peek A 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.400 Boo p I C A b o O and later 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:18.280 was renamed Snapchat. The three founders were Frank Reggie Brown, 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:20.680 who came up with the idea for the app, but 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.240 he didn't have any real business or coding knowledge. Then 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:26.960 you had Evan Spiegel, who was sort of the business guy, 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.600 and Bobby Murphy, who was sort of the coder, and 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.280 they brought this idea to life. Spiegel and Murphy would 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.520 end up creating a company that shared the ownership of 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.360 Snapchat between the two of them, but it left Reggie 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.440 Brown out of it, and Brown would later sue the 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.920 other two co founders and eventually the three would settle 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.559 out of court for about a hundred fifty eight million dollars. 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:54.600 And that was a big deal. You see, Snapchat was 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:59.160 heading towards an initial public offering in and that had 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:04.600 the potential turning the owners into billionaires. But Spiegel and 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:09.440 and uh Murphy felt that Brown really didn't contribute very 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:14.199 much apart from that initial idea. He wasn't according to them, 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.800 he was not instrumental in actually making it happen, and 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.719 so they objected to the idea of him being an 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.840 owner in this company. When Snapchat did hold its ip O, 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.640 it had an opening share price of twenty four dollars, 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:32.160 which gave Snapchat a market capitalization of thirty three billion 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.880 dollars based on the number of shares that were available 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:39.320 on the day I'm researching this. However, snap the code 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.720 for snapchats parent company, is trading at thirteen dollars per 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.680 share or so, so a little bit more than half 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.280 of what the opening price was when it first went 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.960 up on So why the fall from grace, Well, there 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.600 are a lot of reasons. For one, Snapchat had a 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.600 major redesign that angered a lot of US ers, and 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.800 the most recent analyst reports I can find are optimistic 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.040 that stock prices will continue to climb, although maybe not 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:11.000 quite up to that two dollar per share limit, and 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:12.920 it may be a little lower than that, but that 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.800 the company as a whole is starting to rebound. In March, 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:22.439 Pinterest launched that was founded by Evan Sharp, Ben Silberman, 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.600 and Paul Ciara. Pinterest let's users create image boards kind 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.520 of like giant bulletin boards of pictures, and you can 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.400 group images together in whatever way you happen to like. 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.280 Maybe you have a specific interest and you want to 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.720 collect images that relate to that interest. I have friends 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.080 who are costumers, for example, and they have pinterest boards 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:47.040 that are separated into various types of costumes with representations 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.120 of costumes that they find really really compelling, and they 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.679 use that to help make their own patterns and their 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.439 own designs for their own costumes or costumes that they 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.360 get on commission. Uh. I have other friends who do 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:03.040 this for foods. They collect various really great pictures of food. 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.200 I always see that the pictures of food tend to 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.600 look better than the food tends to taste when I 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:09.560 ever get my chance to actually try it. But I 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.880 don't really object to this. So Pinterest was a very 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:18.040 popular and different way of sharing information with a social network. 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:20.360 It took a little while to catch on, but in 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.000 August two thousand and eleven it was named one of 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.880 the fifty best websites of twenty eleven by Time magazine, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.199 and at that point it started growing rapidly with users, 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.720 and by the company was valued at three point eight 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.079 billion dollars. The next one I want to talk about. 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:42.200 I just did a full episode on the Instagram story. 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:46.680 But Instagram launched in October. Kevin Sistram and Mike Krieger 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.559 launched it on iOS exclusively at first. Android got its 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.640 own version a couple of years later, And it's a 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.160 photo sharing service. I'm sure you're familiar with it. If not, 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.280 go back and listen to those episodes that they'll tell 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.280 you all about it. So I'm not gonna die into 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.400 detail here, but Instagram has done pretty well for itself. 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:07.600 It got acquired by Facebook and twelve for a billion buckaroos, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.520 which that's not a bad chunk of change. Next, in 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.719 June two thousand nine, CoA launched That's a question and 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.160 answer site that aims to be a little more helpful 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:22.640 than other similar sites like Yeah, who Answers. Adam de'angelo, 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:24.720 who used to work for Facebook and who I talked 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.640 about a bit in the Instagram episodes, was one of 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.000 the co founders so was Charlie cheever Uh, and they 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.760 put together this idea, created the infrastructure. The questions supposed 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.160 to Cora are curated and answered by the community of users. 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.360 Users can up vote or down vote answers to help 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.920 the most relevant responses rise to the top. So it's 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:50.800 not quite to the point of necessarily experts answering your questions. 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:52.760 It can happen. There are a lot of experts who 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:58.160 do contribute to Cora, but it's whatever answers the community 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.680 feels are really the most helpful that end up rising 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.440 to the top of the list. In two thousand eleven, 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.480 Google launched Google Plus, and originally it was an invite 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.520 only social network that was for the beta testing. I 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.960 got one of those invitations, and so for a brief while, 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.360 I felt like one of the cool kids. It was 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.320 just me, a bunch of entrepreneurs and a ton of 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.440 tech journalists, and it was like the best social network 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:27.760 ever because we were all bunch of dorks. But eventually 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:32.160 it opened up to everybody and you would allow you 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.320 to organize people into circles, so you wouldn't just have friends, 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.360 You could organize your friends via specific circles. What however, 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.640 you wanted to define it. So maybe you had a 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.760 circle of friends who were related to a specific interest 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.560 or specific event. So for example, I work at the 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.520 Georgia Renaissance Festival in the springtime, So I might have 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.920 a circle that's just dedicated to people who also work 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.200 at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, and then I can post 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.920 to that circle and only those friends will see that 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.080 that post, and that way I can keep things that 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.760 are irrelevant to anyone else off their feeds. They don't 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.000 get sick of me posting to just a general feed 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.080 when really I just need to post to this one 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.760 specific group. You could also create a circle of people 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.600 that you didn't want to see anything, so you could 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.040 collect people that were problematic, you know, instead of blocking 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:25.560 one by one, you just throw them in the same 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:30.160 group with everybody else. Now, at one point, Google Plus 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:34.200 was really tightly coupled with YouTube comments. It required commoners 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.960 to create a Google account with a real name if 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.520 they wanted to participate and leave comments on YouTube, and 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.000 Google faced a lot of resistance with that, and the 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.680 company eventually backpedaled a bit in two thousand fifteen. Now, 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:50.520 the concept behind it was I think well intentioned The 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.200 idea was that they wanted to make sure that they 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.240 cut down on cyber bullying, on harassment, and they thought 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:00.640 if users have to have their their handle associated with 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.080 their real identity, they would be less likely to engage 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.919 in bad behavior. But it also meant that people who 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:12.320 were part of vulnerable populations or had an identity that 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.240 was a public facing identity that was different from their 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.639 private identity, it penalized them. So that's why there was 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:24.399 a lot of resistance against this move. Also in analysts 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.480 estimated that the active profiles on Google Plus topped out 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.439 at about one eleven million users as opposed to a 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.120 billion over at Facebook, and only six point seven million 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.240 users had fifty posts or more, with only three point 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.920 five million having fifty posts or more in the last 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.600 thirty days, so it wasn't very active like that. They 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.000 might have had a hundred eleven million users, but people 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.959 were not using it very frequently, so it is not 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:56.159 a hopping place like Facebook. And then in eleven Twitch 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.560 dot tv launched. It was a spinoff of the life 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.720 streaming site justin dot tv. More and more users on 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.720 justin dot tv. We're using the service to stream video 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.080 game play sessions and so Twitch was born to port 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.600 that over to another platform and kind of free up 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.959 justin dot tv for other stuff. The funny thing is, 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.040 eventually justin dot tv would go away and Twitch dot 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.440 tv would stick around. The service is the top live 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.320 streaming video game platform in the United States, outperforming YouTube 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.440 YouTube gaming, which is impressive. YouTube, of course, is enormous 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.280 and has Google behind it, but was unable to dominate 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:36.960 the live stream video game space the way Twitch has. 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:41.159 It has fifteen million daily active users and two million 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.680 broadcasters every single month. Now, I have a lot more 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.880 to say about services and companies that launched after tech 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.920 Stuff did, but let's take a quick break to thank 0:18:50.920 --> 0:19:01.480 our sponsor and we're back right. So let's talk about 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.560 some other companies and services that launched after tech Stuff. 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.080 How about Tender. I did episodes on this recently as well, 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:10.760 so I'm not going to spend a lot of time 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.720 talking about it. But Tender started out as an app 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:18.000 called Matchbox, developed out of the startup incubator hatch Labs, 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.359 which in itself was operated by two companies called I 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.119 a C and Extreme Labs. I a C also owned 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.919 match dot com, so Matchbox was kind of sort of 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.600 related to the established dating service, but Sean rad and 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:36.960 Joe Mnios and a few others turned the dating scheme 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:40.600 into kind of an online flirting game, using just your 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.760 controls of swiping to create sort of a fun, addictive experience, 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.359 and Tender was born in twent twelve. The full story 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.800 of Tender is pretty interesting and filled with ups and downs, 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.280 so check out the recent episodes to learn more. Then, 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.480 how about Periscope? Now, I did an episode about Periscope, 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.480 but that was way back in. Periscope is the live 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.639 streaming service that works on Twitter, and it began as 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:08.640 a project headed by Cavan bikepor and executive at Blackboard 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:14.639 Mobile Mobile, and Joe Bernstein. They founded Periscope in February 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.760 and Baker bake Poor met with Jack Dorsey of Twitter, 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.760 and soon Twitter made an offer to buy Periscope. Estimates 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.119 for that offer range from seventy five million dollars to 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.960 a hundred million dollars. Twitter acquired Periscope in January, and 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.720 the app itself was still in closed beta at that time. 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.880 Periscope and Twitter ended up killing a competing service called 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.960 mere Cat, which launched in February. The Periscope service is 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.040 still active today and you can live stream straight from Twitter. 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.440 I've done it a few times myself, although not recently. 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.639 It's a very convenient way to do it. You can 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.760 just use your mobile phone and you use the cameras 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:55.840 on the mobile phone. You can use either forward facing 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.960 or back facing cameras. It works on iOS and on Android, 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:01.960 and it's kind a fun way to connect with people 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:07.040 while you are live at some event or some some location. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.760 Next I'll chat quickly about Discord. Jason Citron, a game 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.680 development studio founder, was frustrated that there was not really 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:19.840 a good voice over Internet protocol tool set that worked 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.560 well for gamers because some games incorporate voice chat services 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.040 and others don't, and some of the ones that do 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:31.240 have lousy implementations or they have features that you might 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:33.720 not like. So, for example, there might be a game 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.760 where you can chat using a component within the game, 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.320 but if you do, then other people who aren't on 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.320 your team can also hear you. Sometimes it's a proximity thing. 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.560 So let's say you're playing a squad based action game 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:51.560 and you want to be able to coordinate with your teammates, 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:53.800 but you don't want someone on the other team to 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.360 hear what you're up to, and you use the tools 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:58.840 in the game, and if someone's close enough to you, 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.159 they can hear everything you say a and then report 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:05.480 it back to their fellow teammates. Well, using something like Discord, 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:09.280 you could create a server and have private communications with 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.000 your team and not worry about anyone else overhearing you 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.120 if if in fact, that was your desire. And so 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.640 Citron decided that he wanted to create such a tool 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.040 because it didn't exist out there, and his company Hammer 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.399 and Chisel secured funding to develop such a service and 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:28.879 they called it Discord and launched it in It quickly 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:33.000 found popularity through online communities like Twitch and Reddit, and 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:37.480 users can communicate with other players or even audiences through Twitch, 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:42.080 and communication can be through voice or chat. Discord was 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.040 in the news a lot over the last couple of 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:47.160 years because it is very easy to set up a server, 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.520 and users can create handles tied to throw away email 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:54.159 addresses to protect their anonymity, so you don't have to 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:58.080 sign in with a real person name. You can create 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.320 a throwaway Gmail account for exaus ample, and then create 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:05.400 an associated Discord account and be completely anonymous, and some 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:10.640 people belonging to the alt right movement, specifically white supremacists 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.440 and neo Nazis begin using Discord servers to coordinate real 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:19.200 world demonstrations, and Discord responded by shutting down those servers 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:21.960 and making it clear the company does not tolerate hate groups. 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:24.880