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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Polette, and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as always, his senior writer, Jonathan Strickland,

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Speaker 1: better face the facts. It seems you can't get enough. Ah, Yes,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of people can't get enough of our

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Speaker 1: tot Well, yeah, I would say hundreds of millions. In fact,

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Speaker 1: well I was gonna say, I'm sure a few hundred

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Speaker 1: million of them are fed up with it because they

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Speaker 1: did a design change probably in between the time we

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Speaker 1: record this and the time that this actually goes live.

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Speaker 1: But we're talking about Facebook, Yes, we have. We've recorded

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Speaker 1: several podcasts about various aspects of Facebook, including Facebook and

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Speaker 1: its stands on privacy or lack thereof, and uh and

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Speaker 1: other other related topics, uh, Facebook apps. We did one

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Speaker 1: on the Facebook redesign a couple of years ago, which

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Speaker 1: is funny because they've been going to say several of

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Speaker 1: them after that. Yes, there's been more redesigns since then,

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Speaker 1: but we've never really talked about the actual history of

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Speaker 1: Facebook and and how it developed into what it is today.

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Speaker 1: And um, one of the things I'm really grateful about

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Speaker 1: for this topic is that there was one definitive timeline

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Speaker 1: that told us everything we needed to know. That no

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Speaker 1: one was arguing about about how Facebook got started and

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Speaker 1: who was responsible for it. Right, there's no controversy whatsoever,

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Speaker 1: nothing in dispute except everything unless your name is Winklevoss. Yeah, ah,

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Speaker 1: the Winklevosses. It's you know. On a side note before

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Speaker 1: we get into this, it's hard for me to feel

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Speaker 1: sympathy towards them. It's hard for many, many, many people

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Speaker 1: to feel sympathy for that. When when you're known as

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Speaker 1: being a handsome, wealthy young person who was on the

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Speaker 1: Harvard rowing team, extremely athletic olympians exactly, you get to

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Speaker 1: that point where you're thinking, okay, fine, but yes, the

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Speaker 1: story of Facebook is um is mired in controversy. Actually,

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Speaker 1: what you may know if you saw the film and

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Speaker 1: I am not calling it a documentary because some people

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Speaker 1: did think of it as a documentary, not the comedy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Social Network, which and believe it or not, this is

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Speaker 1: a film that I have seen and Jonathan, but but

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Speaker 1: Sorkin himself was very he very specifically pointed out, this

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Speaker 1: is not a documentary. It was a dramatization based upon

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Speaker 1: one account of the origins of Facebook, and it took

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Speaker 1: a lot of liberties with the story for dramatic purposes,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, that's what movies do. So that's

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Speaker 1: why I'm not going to call it. I jokingly call

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Speaker 1: things documentaries when this case I definitely don't want to

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Speaker 1: do like that. It is not a documentary. But there

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Speaker 1: is some truth in it. Yeah, there's there's some truth,

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Speaker 1: and some of it is still kind of ripped from

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Speaker 1: the headlines. Yeah, I'll ripped from the headlines, but some

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Speaker 1: of it is still kind of in that weird, nebulous

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Speaker 1: realm of where does you know who's at fault and

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Speaker 1: what exactly happened. But let's let's let's look back to

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Speaker 1: the very beginnings. Um, we're talking about around two thousand two,

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Speaker 1: one Harvard student named Divya Narinda had kind of come

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Speaker 1: up with an idea for a platform for Harvard students

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Speaker 1: to use that would allow them to connect socially with

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Speaker 1: one another online, perhaps some sort of online social network

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Speaker 1: for example, but that was back in two thousand two

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Speaker 1: when He's first started getting the idea. Then he he

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Speaker 1: met up with the Winklevoss twins Cameron Cameron and Tyler

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Speaker 1: Winklevoss uh and together around in two thousand three. In

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Speaker 1: the fall of two thousand three, they started to seriously

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Speaker 1: discuss this and try and come up with a way

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Speaker 1: of creating it, and their idea was going to be

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Speaker 1: called Harvard Connections dot com. UH. It eventually would evolve

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Speaker 1: into connect you dot com the letter letter you, which

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Speaker 1: could mean connect you as in you the person, or

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Speaker 1: connect you as in university because they had they had

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Speaker 1: envisioned this as being a social network for college students.

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Speaker 1: They were originally going to launch it on Harvard's servers

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Speaker 1: and just to have Harvard students be involved, and then

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Speaker 1: we're eventually planning to opening opening this up to students

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Speaker 1: at other universities. So they start working on this this

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Speaker 1: project and they hire They are not developers. They they've

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Speaker 1: got the idea, but they don't have the expertise. So

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Speaker 1: first they hire a guy named Victor gau g a

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Speaker 1: o UH. They hire him, but Victor eventually decides he

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Speaker 1: needs to leave the project. It's just two time consuming

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Speaker 1: and he doesn't have the time and effort to be

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Speaker 1: able to pour into it. But he comes up with

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Speaker 1: a name of a guy that he thinks would be

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Speaker 1: perfect to help them develop this project. That guy was

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Speaker 1: a nineteen year old by the name of Mark Zuckerberg.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I've heard that name, but I don't.

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Speaker 1: I don't. Yeah, I'm sure I'll think of where I

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Speaker 1: heard it before. Well, at this point, Winkle, the Winklevoss twins,

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Speaker 1: and Nerenda are all seniors at Harvard. Zuckerberg at the

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Speaker 1: time was a sophomore. So Zuckerberg comes onto the project

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Speaker 1: and takes a look at what, talks to them about

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Speaker 1: what they want, and says, yeah, this is a great idea.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to help you build this out and I

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Speaker 1: will um, I'll put the functionality in and we'll have

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Speaker 1: more meetings about this. So this is all taking place

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Speaker 1: in the fall of two thousand three. Yeah. Now, now,

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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg had been working on other similar types of projects. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the reason why Victor suggested Zuckerberg in the

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Speaker 1: first place is Zuckerberg was had launched a very high profile,

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Speaker 1: controversial site at Harvard called face mash. Yes. And the

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Speaker 1: reason why this was controversial was that what Zuckerberg did, Zuckerberg,

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Speaker 1: as it turns out, seems to have a a fast

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Speaker 1: and loose approach when it comes to things like privacy

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Speaker 1: and rules that was more evident in the past than

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Speaker 1: it is now. Arguably he's well, he's because now he's incorporated,

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Speaker 1: he's been more careful about his personal views. His messaging

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Speaker 1: is a little is maybe a little more careful, I think,

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Speaker 1: probably because his lawyers have told him to be right.

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Speaker 1: So what he did with face mash was that he

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Speaker 1: used it was it was brilliant and it was brazen.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, he created a site that what

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Speaker 1: it would do is it would collect images of Harvard

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Speaker 1: students from other from databases on at Harvard. He essentially

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Speaker 1: hacked into these systems like the directories. Yeah, I guess

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Speaker 1: hacked is probably too strong a term. He created code

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Speaker 1: that would access these directories and pull information from them.

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Speaker 1: So it wasn't so much as this is a closed

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Speaker 1: system that he was trying to get access to. He

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Speaker 1: was just grabbing information that was available and putting it

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Speaker 1: on a new platform. Right. In this case, the information

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Speaker 1: were photos would pull photos names of various students at Harvard, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And what face mesh would do is it would pair

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Speaker 1: two people on a site and you would vote which

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Speaker 1: person was more attractive, and it kept a tally of

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Speaker 1: the people who were being voted the most attractive over

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Speaker 1: and over again. So that part of the site was

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Speaker 1: just this fun thing where you would go on and say, oh, well, uh,

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Speaker 1: she's more attractive than than than she is, or or

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Speaker 1: she and him or he and he whatever. He would

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Speaker 1: vote and vote and vote and vote, and they would

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Speaker 1: keep this tally. And then you could also go and

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Speaker 1: look at the most attractive students at Harvard University. Um.

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Speaker 1: This kind of upset the college board, the student board

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Speaker 1: at Harvard, not to mention a few of the students

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Speaker 1: who didn't want their pictures being judged up there. Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: it Harvard's a little conservative, as it turns out. Um,

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Speaker 1: so the students, uh, student board kind of brought Mark

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Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg up on the you know, saying that this

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Speaker 1: was not a very smart thing to do, that it

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Speaker 1: was a violated privacy dude. Yeah, and uh he was not. Um,

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Speaker 1: he was not expelled for this, but he was reprimanded

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Speaker 1: for it, yes, and said that he was charged specifically

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Speaker 1: with breaching security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy. So

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Speaker 1: face mash gets shut down, but he had. He was

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Speaker 1: fairly notorious on campus already because of this, and it

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Speaker 1: was such a successful site. So he was thought of

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Speaker 1: as a guy who could develop not just stuff that worked,

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Speaker 1: but stuff that appealed to people. And that's why Victor

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Speaker 1: had said, this is the guy you should get to

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Speaker 1: help develop your connect you project. Now I didn't run

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Speaker 1: across this in my actual research, but on the in

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Speaker 1: the movie. Uh And again I don't know whether or

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Speaker 1: not it's actual fact or that was gussied up for

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Speaker 1: the script, but they said that one of the other

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Speaker 1: problems that they had with it was that the it

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Speaker 1: texts the university's network because it was very very popular.

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Speaker 1: Um it was. It was definitely popular. Though whether or

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Speaker 1: not it actually texts their broad band is yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't know about that, but yeah, the fact that it

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Speaker 1: was very popular attracted that that would have attracted interest. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so uh So anyway, Mark Zuckerberg joins the connect You team,

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Speaker 1: and again this is taking place in the fall of

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Speaker 1: two thousand three, fall and winter of two thousand three

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Speaker 1: could possibly go. He's he starts sending the messages. When

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Speaker 1: they're asking him, Hey, what's the status on this project,

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Speaker 1: he starts sending back messages saying, Oh, I'm really busy.

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Speaker 1: I've got a lot of schoolwork. But don't worry. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna be working on this. It's just I'm gonna have

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Speaker 1: to put it off a little bit longer, but we'll

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Speaker 1: be able to launch. We're just gonna probably launch a

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Speaker 1: little later than we had planned. Uh, skip ahead into

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Speaker 1: two thousand four and then uh, specifically, February four, two

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Speaker 1: thousand four, Zuckerberg launches a an online site called the

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Speaker 1: Facebook dot com for Harvard students, and it's a social

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Speaker 1: site where people can create profiles and connect with other students,

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Speaker 1: which might sound a little similar to something that the

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Speaker 1: Winklevosses were working on. In fact, the Winklevosses loot so

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Speaker 1: and within six days of Facebook being launched, the Winklevosses

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Speaker 1: and Nearinda said, Dude, you're working for us, and this

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Speaker 1: thing that you just launched looks an awful lot like

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Speaker 1: the thing we want to launch. What's up with that?

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Speaker 1: And you were telling us this whole time that you

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Speaker 1: didn't have the time to work on our project that

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Speaker 1: we thought you were a part of. And in fact,

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Speaker 1: this later developed into a very serious lawsuit against Facebook,

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Speaker 1: which stretched on for several years and it um In fact,

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Speaker 1: it went on until two thousand eight, when there was

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Speaker 1: a settlement and settlement for sixty five million dollars, and

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Speaker 1: then the Winklevosses decided to um appeal that settlement, saying

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Speaker 1: that really doesn't reflect the enormity of the problem here,

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Speaker 1: whereas the judges in the cases I was reviewing, we're

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Speaker 1: essentially saying, hey, this wasn't Zuckerberg was not under a contract.

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Speaker 1: This was like just people chatting in a dorm room.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't. It wasn't like a legally binding thing. And

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Speaker 1: and you haven't really proved than that, Uh, Zuckerberg stole

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Speaker 1: information from connect You, And in fact, most of the

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Speaker 1: reports I read suggests that the way he implemented things

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Speaker 1: on the Facebook dot com was not the way they

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Speaker 1: were trying to implement things for connect You. In fact,

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Speaker 1: that they us Zuckerberg himself referred to Connect You as

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Speaker 1: more or less a dating site, which to him was

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Speaker 1: too narrow a view. He didn't want to create a

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Speaker 1: site just to try and find a date. He wanted

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Speaker 1: to create a site that would allow people to connect

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Speaker 1: with one another on multiple levels, not just trying to

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Speaker 1: find a relationship. So, uh, it may very well be

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Speaker 1: that the Facebook dot com and connect you dot com

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Speaker 1: we're not identical. Like, it wasn't that that Zuckerberg was

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Speaker 1: stealing stuff to implement into Facebook. It's just that the

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Speaker 1: two platforms were at least similar, they were going after

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Speaker 1: a similar population. The fact that were going across the

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Speaker 1: identical population originally because it was going to be the

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Speaker 1: Harvard students, right, and that Zuckerberg was purposefully holding back

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Speaker 1: the connect you projects so that he would have a

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Speaker 1: favorable launch for Facebook, which again you might say it's unethical,

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Speaker 1: but it's different. It's a different kind of unethical than

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Speaker 1: stealing intellectual property. So I can't I don't think Zuckerberg's

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Speaker 1: hands are clean in this, not fully clean, but I

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Speaker 1: don't necessarily believe he was lifting ideas from the wink

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Speaker 1: of voss is. But he certainly wasn't helping their cause

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Speaker 1: at all. And in fact, um that's really evident now

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Speaker 1: because Facebook is huge and connect You is not. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't exist. Yeah, And then there's Ah, then there is

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Speaker 1: a person named Aaron Greenspan, uh who who was working

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Speaker 1: on his own site, which he was calling House System. Um.

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Speaker 1: And in two thousand and three he now he's at

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Speaker 1: Harvard student And in two thousand three he was promoting

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Speaker 1: his site with the brand new feature called the Facebook,

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Speaker 1: which showed up before the Facebook dot com. And uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, so there are several people who would like

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Speaker 1: to disagree with Zuckerberg's assertion that he was the one

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Speaker 1: who came up with the entire thing himself, right, And

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Speaker 1: then there's there's some other problems too. Um, there's some

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Speaker 1: other controversies in this these early days of Facebook. So

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Speaker 1: six days after Facebook launches, there's the complaint from the

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Speaker 1: Winklevoss twins um and uh. And Zuckerberg starts to worry

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Speaker 1: that that the college is going to get involved in

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Speaker 1: this dispute, and in fact is worried about um, the

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Speaker 1: folks from connect you at connecting with the the university newspaper.

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Speaker 1: So uh, Harvard crimson is one of the problems. So

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Speaker 1: so he starts to it starts to really get complicated. Now,

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Speaker 1: at one point there were allegations of Zuckerberg hacking into

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Speaker 1: connect you profiles to make them less useful, and that

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Speaker 1: he was supposedly um accessing connect you profiles and changing

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Speaker 1: a setting to turn profiles invisible to other people. So

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Speaker 1: if you log into your profile, you might say, why

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Speaker 1: is no one interacting with me? And it's because no

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Speaker 1: one can find you because he had gone in there

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Speaker 1: and reset your your settings so that it was a

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Speaker 1: private profile. Uh. And so it was essentially a case

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Speaker 1: of sabotage if those allegations are indeed true. But beyond that, uh,

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Speaker 1: there was the point of worrying about the Winkle bosses

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Speaker 1: going to the Crimson and saying Zuckerberg ripped us off.

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Speaker 1: And so the Crimson reporters, for their part, were doing

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Speaker 1: their due diligence and reporting the news and trying to

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Speaker 1: research this before they ran a story. So they went

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Speaker 1: to Zuckerberg and they asked him, you know, about the allegations,

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Speaker 1: and he said, look, the stuff on the Facebook dot

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Speaker 1: com the platform is totally different and the implementation is

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Speaker 1: totally different from connect you. And he said I can

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Speaker 1: even prove it. And originally he wanted them to sign

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Speaker 1: a non disclosure agreement. Uh, while he showed them that

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Speaker 1: the two systems were totally different, but they're reporters, and

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Speaker 1: they said, uh, we don't do that because then we

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Speaker 1: couldn't report on it. What would be the point. So

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Speaker 1: eventually Zuckerberg agrees to show them without the use of

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Speaker 1: an NDIA, and they also come to the same conclusion.

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Speaker 1: They say, no, these two systems are different enough so that, uh,

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Speaker 1: we don't see that there's really any allegation that could

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Speaker 1: be supported by this. We don't really think there's a

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Speaker 1: story here. So they kind of back off, but the

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Speaker 1: story doesn't in there. The Winklevoz continue. The wink Winklevoss

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Speaker 1: twins continue to pressure the Crimson reporters, saying, look, there's

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Speaker 1: something more here and we need you to really look

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Speaker 1: into this, and so the story keeps on moving. Zuckerberg

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Speaker 1: doesn't know what's going on and allegedly decides to access

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Speaker 1: the reporter's email to hack the reporter's email, although it's

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Speaker 1: not really hacking because here's what he did. He looked

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Speaker 1: at the servers for the Facebook dot com. He looked

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Speaker 1: for profiles of people who were reporters or worked for

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Speaker 1: the Crimson, and then he looked for any records of

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Speaker 1: failed lugin attempts and looked at the failed passwords to

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Speaker 1: guess the real password, and then assumed that the real

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Speaker 1: password for the Facebook dot Com account would likely be

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Speaker 1: the same one used for the email, then logged into

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Speaker 1: the email. Yeah, so not really hacking, because hacking would involve,

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Speaker 1: you know, some sort of guesswork or decrypt ing or No.

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Speaker 1: He was just taking a list of passwords that he

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Speaker 1: had available to him because he was the one running

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Speaker 1: the show at the Facebook dot Com and using the

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Speaker 1: logic that most people don't bother with creating different passwords

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Speaker 1: for different accounts. This, by the way, is where we

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Speaker 1: tell you make different passwords for your various accounts. It's

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Speaker 1: a pain in the butt, but it prevents stuff like

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Speaker 1: this from happening where someone you know, you never know.

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Speaker 1: There may be a service that you connect to and

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Speaker 1: everyone but one person in that company is on the

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Speaker 1: up and up, but that one person is kind of

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Speaker 1: a jerk, and then they use that information to try

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Speaker 1: and access your your stuff elsewhere. That's why you need

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Speaker 1: to have different passwords, unique passwords for each place. So

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Speaker 1: he starts to try and access email. The ironic thing

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Speaker 1: here was that the reporters had come again come to

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Speaker 1: the conclusion that there isn't really a story there, and

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Speaker 1: so they weren't really moving on stuff. They were going

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Speaker 1: to report the story, but they weren't going to come

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Speaker 1: down on uh. You know, this is a legitimate, uh allegation. Um,

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Speaker 1: so that that's also kind of interesting. Uh. And again

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Speaker 1: I have to say, all of these are allegations that

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Speaker 1: have been leveled. There's no definitive yes he did or

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Speaker 1: no he did not. There are the nials from Facebook

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Speaker 1: essentially come down to we don't comment on that because

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Speaker 1: we don't want to give more uh publicity to people

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Speaker 1: who are dragging up mud and just slinging it at Zuckerberg.

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Speaker 1: We stand by the success of Facebook dot com. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think there's really only one person who knows everything

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Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, and he's incredibly rich, so uh Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Then in that same year, in two thousand four, in

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Speaker 1: September two thoour he at the first round of of

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Speaker 1: real investment money, which came from the former PayPal CEO

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Speaker 1: Peter Thiel, who poured in half a million into Facebook.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty impressive, although at the time before that, the

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Speaker 1: man who was funding the Facebook servers was another Harvard

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Speaker 1: student Eduardo Severin, Yes, and he was. He was a

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Speaker 1: big part of the company for quite some time. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think he owned like a share of Facebook dot com,

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Speaker 1: which seven or fifty million active users, multibillion dollar company.

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Speaker 1: That's that's some that's some hard cash right there. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's uh, that's the that's the really controversial part of

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Speaker 1: the beginning of Facebook. And like we said, you know,

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Speaker 1: there was the whole the whole lawsuit, the settlement, the

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Speaker 1: appeal of the settlement, but there are other um parts

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Speaker 1: of Facebook that had some controversy that same year. Uh

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Speaker 1: for example, Well, first of all, before I jump ahead there,

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Speaker 1: it launched in February, and March it opened up to

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Speaker 1: not just Harvard, but to Stanford and Columbia and Yale

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Speaker 1: as well. So March of two thousand four, now it's

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Speaker 1: up open to four universities. Um. In June, that's when

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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg's like, this is this is what I'm doing. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna be I'm gonna make a ment, this is my

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Speaker 1: this is my meal ticket and he high tails it

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Speaker 1: out to Palo Alto, California. That becomes the headquarters for Facebook.

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Speaker 1: So Harvard no longer uh. In September two four, they

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Speaker 1: add the application of groups so that you can create

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Speaker 1: groups within Facebook, so that you've got your own like

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Speaker 1: group of folks who have a similar interest or are

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Speaker 1: from a similar place. Uh, and they add the wall

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Speaker 1: to the profile because before we gotta remember, you know,

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Speaker 1: today it's easy to forget that. When Facebook first launched,

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Speaker 1: it was incredibly basic. You had a profile page. It

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Speaker 1: was a profile page where people could find out more

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Speaker 1: information about you. That was pretty much it. So if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to have Jonathan on your list of people,

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Speaker 1: basically you would bookmark the page and go back there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it would just really like a directory. It would

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Speaker 1: be almost like an online business card, but a little

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Speaker 1: more personal than that. And then, uh, but in September

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Speaker 1: that's when they have two thousand four US when they

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Speaker 1: added the wall feature where you could update little status

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Speaker 1: is and that's where you got the whole you know, tonight,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out to blah blah blah. However, no education. However,

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Speaker 1: to see what your friends were talking about, you still

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Speaker 1: had to visit their profile. So in other words, if

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Speaker 1: I wanted to know what Chris was up to, I

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Speaker 1: would go to Chris's profile and read it on his page.

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Speaker 1: It wouldn't show up on my page at all. We'll

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Speaker 1: get into that because that's another thing, is that it's

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Speaker 1: easy to forget when the features of Facebook got introduced. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: people since um, since it was originally aimed at college

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Speaker 1: students U, it may be difficult for the majority of

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Speaker 1: the rest of us who didn't have accounts until Facebook

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Speaker 1: went public um. And I don't mean I p O,

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Speaker 1: I mean opened up to opened up to the public.

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Speaker 1: Um that that we realized that and a lot of

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Speaker 1: these features had already been implemented, the very basics had

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Speaker 1: been implemented. Will be getting into one of those in

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Speaker 1: a minute. But yeah, Uh, back then it was you

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Speaker 1: had to be a college student or to be able

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Speaker 1: to access Facebook at that point, and it before two

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Speaker 1: thousand four was over, they had switched from the Facebook

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Speaker 1: to Facebook. Uh. Also, in fall of two thousand four

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Speaker 1: they tried to launch, in fact, they do launch another

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Speaker 1: service that connects to Facebook. This should sound familiar to

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Speaker 1: anyone who's used any sort of application which requires you

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Speaker 1: to connect through Facebook. First, they called it wire Hog.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember wire Hog? No, I don't wire Hog.

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Speaker 1: I mean I've heard of it, but I don't remember it.

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00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: So wire Hog launched in two thousand four, fall of

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Speaker 1: two thousand four, and the idea was that it was

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Speaker 1: going to be a sharing platform that would allow you

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Speaker 1: to share things like photos or music from your computer

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Speaker 1: with other people, so almost like a peer to peer thing.

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Speaker 1: But it used Facebook's log in system as a connector.

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Speaker 1: So it was a precursor to a lot of the

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Speaker 1: other websites and applications that you know, you you log

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Speaker 1: in through Facebook and then you can interact more with

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Speaker 1: that site. It kind of was a predecessor to that

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00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: now because of the file to file sort of relationship

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Speaker 1: with you know, the fact that the whole peer to

402
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: peer networks and file sharing got a super bad name

403
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Speaker 1: because of piracy, rampant piracy. Uh, Facebook dropped wire Hog,

404
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 1: and they do not really refer to that at all anymore.

405
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Speaker 1: But that originally was going to be a huge platform,

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Speaker 1: and Zuckerberg and and Facebook had poured a lot of

407
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Speaker 1: of time and effort into creating a and all indications

408
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: early on seemed to be that wire Hogg was going

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Speaker 1: to be just as big, if not bigger than Facebook itself.

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Speaker 1: It's just that because of all the heat, they decided

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Speaker 1: to drop it. Yeah. Some people have said that it

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Speaker 1: was because it wasn't taking off as fast as they

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Speaker 1: had hoped, and it was sort of distracting them from

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Speaker 1: the possibility that, uh, they could promote Facebook more thoroughly.

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Speaker 1: But I think it's more that they didn't want the

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Speaker 1: legal headaches, legal head Yeah, no, I think I totally

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00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 1: agree with you. So, but it did it did provide some, uh,

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Speaker 1: some clues as to what Facebook could do because and

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Speaker 1: I speaking of the connecting other parts of the web

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Speaker 1: to Facebook and vice versa, which we see a lot

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Speaker 1: of now. Yeah, well by December of two thousand four,

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00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: so it's not even quite a year old, yet they

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Speaker 1: had almost hit a million active users, and uh it's

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Speaker 1: big news. I mean now, granted, at this point, my

425
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Speaker 1: Space is already up and running as well and is

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Speaker 1: way ahead of Facebook because my Space did not limit

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00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: itself to just college students. What about friends? Friends Store

428
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 1: was never well, Friendster was. Friendster was big because there

429
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: was nothing else to do to use at that point,

430
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: so Friendster was not. Friendster would later come into the

431
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: story again, but was not not not as big a

432
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 1: player well, I guess it was a little larger at

433
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:24,719
Speaker 1: that time, but not not from very much longer. Yea,

434
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: it was something ork. It was also out, but orch It,

435
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 1: which was Google's social network, didn't really take off except

436
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: in other countries like Brazil and India, never really took

437
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 1: off in the United States or anywhere else in North America.

438
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: Considering though the head start that some of these other

439
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:45,400
Speaker 1: sites had, um it is it is almost shocking in

440
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: in uh in hindsight to see how Facebook out maneuvered

441
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:54,400
Speaker 1: them and so many different and there's so many they

442
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: were there. There was a lot of hubris on the

443
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: part of the other companies as well. There's no we're

444
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 1: too big to fail. There's no way this little upstart

445
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,120
Speaker 1: company is gonna cause problems for us. I should also

446
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,119
Speaker 1: add now that I misspoke earlier. I said that the

447
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com became Facebook, and two thousand four it

448
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: did not. It was August two thousand five. Was looking

449
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:17,919
Speaker 1: at the wrong section of my notes. So for all

450
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: those people who wrote in to tell me I was wrong,

451
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 1: you were right, um But I did correct myself before

452
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: the end of the podcast, So shame on you for

453
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,719
Speaker 1: pausing it and writing to me before you finished. Um.

454
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: Moving on. By September of two thousand five, that's when

455
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: Facebook opens up to high school students. So now it's

456
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: colleges and high schools. And by the end of two

457
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: thousand five they're up to five point five and a

458
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: half million users active users. They also in that year

459
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: added uh, folks Photos as an application, so you can

460
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: have a photo book inside a photo album inside your

461
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: Facebook profile. Now, I think when I first joined Facebook, uh,

462
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: the there was a limit to how many photos you

463
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 1: could have within an album, and it was sixty. So

464
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: if you want to upload, if you had more than

465
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 1: sixty photos for an event, you had to actually create

466
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: two albums at least to be able to house them all.

467
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: It's different now, um, but yeah, back then that was

468
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: that was it was still really cool. I mean the

469
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 1: fact that you know, people could actually have a place

470
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 1: where they interacted and they could share photos. It wasn't

471
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: just a photo sharing site uh meant that it had

472
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 1: some added value. By April of two thousand and six,

473
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: they had raised more than more than twenty seven million

474
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: dollars in invent your capital. Uh. Every year, essentially Facebook

475
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 1: was getting more and more investments. Uh. It took a

476
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: while for Facebook to find a business model that was

477
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: going to work out for them. Now, of course, today

478
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: we know that they use a lot of advertising to

479
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: generate revenue. And this would be a good time to mention.

480
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: If you ever see a message on Facebook that says

481
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: be aware that Facebook is going to start creating premium

482
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: accounts or charging people to use Facebook, that's just a hoax.

483
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: It doesn't if you think about it for a second,

484
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: it makes no sense for Facebook to do that. You

485
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: could argue, Facebook has seven million users. If it charged

486
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: for access, think of all the money they can make. Well,

487
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 1: that assumes that the seven million people wouldn't immediately say no,

488
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: I'm out. Uh yeah, yeah, I imagine a lot of

489
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: people would bail on that. And they already have a

490
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: very lucrative position because they have chosen to partner with

491
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody and they are working you know, people

492
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: are working with Facebook on revenue opportunities, so there's no

493
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: need to charge for and if yeah, and if face,

494
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: if Facebook makes a lot of its money through advertising,

495
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 1: well it would it would put those relationships with its

496
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: advertisers in jeopardy because the advertisers would say, hey, wait

497
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: a minute, you're driving away our audience. That's what we're

498
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 1: paying you for. We're paying you for access to these people.

499
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: If you drive those people away, then why are we

500
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: paying you. So it makes no financial sense at all

501
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: from Facebook's perspective, to create a premium account or start

502
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: charging people. It makes way more sense to keep it

503
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: as open as possible because ultimately the product that Facebook

504
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 1: is selling is you. Your information is what is valuable

505
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: to Facebook's advertisers, and so it makes way more sense

506
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: for Facebook to try and gather as many of us

507
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: as there as it possibly can, and it makes no

508
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: sense to try and limit that. So if you ever

509
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: do see that making the rounds at Facebook, just know

510
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: that it's a hoax. Also, most of them say paste

511
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: this in your status update to prevent it from happening

512
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: to you. How does that make sense anytime anybody? And

513
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 1: that goes for email too, When people say share this

514
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: with all of your friends, that's usually a signal or

515
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 1: some sort of chain letter or something. Yeah, I just

516
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: don't understand. I don't understand because there's someone at Facebook

517
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 1: who says, no, we shall turn on the premium account setting.

518
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 1: Oh eight. He posted that in his status update last Wednesday,

519
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: trat you escape my defarious plan. I like to think

520
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: they do that, but I doubt it. I have no

521
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: follow up to that. Yeah, I've had a lot of

522
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: coffee this morning, all right, So tangent aside. Back back

523
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: to the story of Facebook. So moving through two thousand six,

524
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: they start to work to to flesh out Facebook even more, uh,

525
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,959
Speaker 1: and they start to create something that in September two

526
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: thousand six made a big thud in Facebook. Today it's

527
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: instrumental in the way we use Facebook. But at the

528
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: time people saw it and said, whoa which was the

529
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: news feed and the mini feed? Yeah, the news feed

530
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: the mini feed, but the news feed, you know, this

531
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: is where you would log onto your Facebook account and

532
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: suddenly you had a centralized view of what your friends

533
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: were up to. And it wasn't like that before. Remember before,

534
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: if you wanted to find out what your friends were

535
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: up to, you had to visit their profile to find out.

536
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: But now you had a place that was funneling their

537
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 1: activities into your news feed. And some people really I

538
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: thought this was terrible. And then they did something else

539
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: that was very controversial. What they sold out man, Well,

540
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 1: yeah they did that too. They allowed the regular guy

541
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: two and and and you know lady to join. They

542
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: no longer had to be a student to join. Same Yeah,

543
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: the same month that they opened up the news feeds.

544
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: So for most of us who joined Facebook once we could,

545
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: we only knew Facebook using the news feeds. So for

546
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: us it was not a big deal. But to the

547
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: people who had been there before, it was a very

548
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: big deal. And uh, and admittedly there were some missteps,

549
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: and in fact, Zuckerberg apologized for the way the news

550
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: feed was implemented. This would not be the first time

551
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: that Zuckerberg or the last time that Zuckerberg would offer

552
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: an apology based upon what Facebook had done the last No,

553
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 1: it will not be. But the the problem was that

554
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: a lot of the activities were showing up in news feeds,

555
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: whether people wanted them to or not, and so Facebook

556
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: eventually had to, you know, they had to tweak the

557
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: privacy settings behind the scenes so that not everything would

558
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: publish all the time. So for example, the poke feature,

559
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: where yeah, all it is just a little thing where

560
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: it sends a message to someone saying that they've been poked.

561
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: That's all it is. That's it. But some people use

562
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,959
Speaker 1: as a way of flirting or whatever, or or irritating

563
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: someone they did. They did not want it publishing on

564
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: everyone's news feed that they had poked someone else, especially

565
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: if they were a pathological poker, if they were poking

566
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,239
Speaker 1: lots of pe bowl. They didn't want people to see that, like,

567
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: especially if you're using it as flirtation, right, pathological. Let's

568
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 1: say that I want to send a poke to some

569
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: dreamy gal um. I'll say, Candice, I want to poke

570
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: Candice uh formerly of stuff you missed in history class,

571
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: and I send a poke to her. But then I think,

572
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,800
Speaker 1: you know what, Doblina, who is now on stuff you

573
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: missed in history class, I want to I'm gonna send

574
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: her a poke too. Well. I definitely don't want Cannison

575
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 1: Deablina to see that I've poked both of them. That's

576
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: just gonna be awkward. They don't listen to tech stuff,

577
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: do they. I have no idea. All right, listeners, I

578
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 1: need you all to raise your right hands and repeat

579
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: after me. I promise I will not tell Candice or

580
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: Debilina that Jonathan talked about them on text stuff. Okay, now,

581
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 1: but that's an example of the sort of stuff that

582
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 1: people were upset about. And of course they tweaked at

583
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:58,359
Speaker 1: Facebook tweak these things so that not everything would pop up.

584
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's kind of interest seem to think that

585
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: the news feed was such a controversial, uh feature, when

586
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: today it is like the central place people go to

587
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 1: when there are using Facebook. Uh. By the end of

588
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 1: two thousand six, Facebook had hit twelve million active users,

589
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: so more than doubling in size from the previous year. Uh.

590
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand seven, you start getting into

591
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 1: things like they had. They they start opening up and

592
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,840
Speaker 1: getting popular in Canada the United Kingdom, they launched the

593
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 1: Virtual Gift Shop, which lasted for a while. Well less

594
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: than six months later in April of two thousand seven,

595
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: they had twenty million active users. It was starting to

596
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: grow really really quickly. At this point that was almost again,

597
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: that was almost doubled from just a few months previous.

598
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 1: And in May two thousand seven, that's when they launched

599
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: the Facebook platform. Now this was where people could develop, uh,

600
00:35:55,160 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: develop sort of extensions or games or other features using

601
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: Facebook as its own platform. Yeah. Yeah, this is this

602
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: is what allows this is what allows all those games

603
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: like Farmville and Mafia Wars and the zombie games and

604
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: the pirate games and all of those different variations. Uh,

605
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: they're using Facebook as a platform now. When it first launched,

606
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: there was something like applications, but now there are thousands

607
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: of them. And if you have the kind of friends

608
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 1: who like to play lots of games and you yourself

609
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: are not that kind of person, you know how irritating

610
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: that could be. Although the hide feature is fantastic. Um,

611
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: So then you go on a little bit further. We

612
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: should also mention that Facebook, uh, in two thousand seven

613
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: launched and then eventually buried something else that caused a

614
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:53,800
Speaker 1: lot of controversy. Beacons Beacon. I knew you could. I

615
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 1: was like, I knew he was going to do that.

616
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: I knew it. I almost said that before we started recording.

617
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 1: I was gonna put money down, Um and I would

618
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 1: have won. But yeah, So Beacon was this idea of

619
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: Facebook being involved in transactions, like if you're starting to

620
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:15,720
Speaker 1: shop through Facebook, so that Facebook can market your shopping

621
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: habits and your preferences to advertisers to target advertising specifically

622
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: to you so that you would continue to shop online

623
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: and spend more money so that more advertisers could be

624
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 1: targeted to you. And um, the way it was implemented.

625
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: People freaked out and said this is a terrible, gross

626
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: violation of privacy, and Zuckerberg said, whoops, sorry, and they

627
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: quietly killed it. Actually, I guess quietly is not really true.

628
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: They publicly killed it. However, one could argue that today

629
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 1: what Facebook is doing is essentially the same thing that

630
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: Beacon was doing, is just not branded Beacon Beacan. As

631
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:55,359
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, in two thousand six, they had

632
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:59,440
Speaker 1: already begun partnering with other companies um to work together

633
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 1: to uh share information um and and to share uh

634
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: different stories and things on Facebook. UM. So this was

635
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 1: sort of a logical extension of that. They've realized that

636
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 1: their their customer base is an important source of revenue

637
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 1: for the company. Um and as a matter of fact,

638
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: Facebook and Microsoft we're working together before the end of

639
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 1: two thousand seven to reach out to foreign markets. So

640
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 1: um and then you know, the Facebook adds you know,

641
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: funny they don't they don't. Facebook's official timeline doesn't mention

642
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: Beacon by name. That's strange. I wonder why that is.

643
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:39,879
Speaker 1: It was a it was a black eye for the company. Yeah,

644
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 1: and it was definitely becoming something a very public uh

645
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: publicly popular site they had the featured their presidential debates

646
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:54,720
Speaker 1: with ABC News in uh January two UM. They started

647
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,800
Speaker 1: releasing in foreign languages also in that year, with Spanish, French, German.

648
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: UM launched the Facebook Chat application in April of two

649
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 1: UM and got to a hundred million active users, which is,

650
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:10,920
Speaker 1: you have to think about it among the most popular

651
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:15,360
Speaker 1: sites on the Internet already by August two eight. And

652
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:17,759
Speaker 1: then there was Facebook Connect, yes, by the end of

653
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: that and that Facebook Connect that's the one we've been

654
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:23,760
Speaker 1: talking about obliquely throughout this podcast, the one that allows

655
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 1: you to create some sort of Facebook interaction on your

656
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: site and have people log in through their Facebook log

657
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: in account to create a profile on your site, so

658
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: you don't have to log in create a user name

659
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 1: and password on multiple sites. They will allow you to

660
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 1: log in on other sites with your Facebook. It keeps

661
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: you in Facebook's ecosystem. It's good for the consumer and

662
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: that it simplifies how many you know accounts you have.

663
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: It's good for Facebook because it means that they get

664
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,400
Speaker 1: even more information about you. UM, and it's good for

665
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: the sites that you log into because it gives them

666
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: a higher profile. Facebook being so incredibly popular by the

667
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 1: way in two thousand nines, removing over to that. That

668
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: was when Beacon was officially shut down. It was launched

669
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven. It was not officially shut down

670
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 1: till two thousand nine. And by the way, the reason,

671
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about how it gives off gave

672
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: away a lot of your personal information. One of the

673
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 1: big reasons why people hated Beacon was that it would

674
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 1: post things to your wall based upon your actual shopping habits. Yeah,

675
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 1: you remember all those partners that they had. So if

676
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:30,799
Speaker 1: you went shopping at you know, I like toys dot

677
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: Com and you bought a whole box of um construction toys,

678
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you went back to your

679
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: Facebook while I went, wait a minute, how they know

680
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 1: that I just spent two dollars on plastic bricks? Yeah.

681
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 1: Or let's say that you went to some site and

682
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 1: bought some jewelry for, uh, for your sweetheart, and your

683
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 1: sweetheart is on for for a gift. Yeah, then your

684
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: sweetheart suddenly knows that you bought this jewelry because it's

685
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,399
Speaker 1: it's posted right there in your Facebook. Or let's say

686
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,879
Speaker 1: you bought some uh, some jewelry for someone who's not

687
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:06,839
Speaker 1: your sweetheart, because you're sweetheart, says honey, you know I

688
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: don't like amethysts, and then you said, but I didn't

689
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: buy it, I mean, and then it goes to your relationships.

690
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 1: That goes from from either either married or in a

691
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:23,240
Speaker 1: relationship to either single or it's complicated. Um. Yeah. So

692
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 1: that's why people fought felt it was a real gross

693
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: violation of privacy, was that it was posting all this

694
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: stuff about you. So in two thousand nine probably took

695
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 1: more time than you would expect. September twenty one, two

696
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: thousand nine, Facebook shuts down Beacon. Yes, now check this out.

697
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: Just some January two thine, Facebook gets to a hundred

698
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:48,360
Speaker 1: fifty million active users, February hundred seventy million active users.

699
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 1: And if you like that, you can now click the

700
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:54,839
Speaker 1: like button because that's when that showed up April two million. Yeah,

701
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: which is which is funny because that means it March

702
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,280
Speaker 1: slowed things down. Yes, and when it went up twenty

703
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: five million from January to February and then up million

704
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: from February to April. They'll catch up because in July

705
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: they got two million, in September three million, in December

706
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: three fifty million, which means they started the year at

707
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: one fifty million and ended in three fifty million, So

708
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: they more than doubled over the course of twelve months,

709
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: and that was pretty incredible, especially when you consider how

710
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: large it was already in August two thousand nine, that's

711
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 1: when they um when Facebook purchased acquired a friend feed. Yes, uh,

712
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: and then you started to see some of friend feeds

713
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: kind of functionality implemented in the Facebook UI. Yes. So yeah,

714
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:41,720
Speaker 1: friend feed goes by by and becomes one with Facebook.

715
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 1: I remember a lot of people being a not a

716
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 1: lot of people, well yes, but I remember there were

717
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,280
Speaker 1: people who were upset, which kind of interested because canceled

718
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: their friend feed accounts. But then friend feed wasn't that huge,

719
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 1: but the people who were using it were upset are

720
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: some passionate users. So then h February you get up

721
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: to over four million, and then by July you get

722
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: over to over five million active users. And in August

723
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 1: they launch Places, which is a yet another location based

724
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: service which we've seen throughout the Internet in various applications,

725
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: and you can check in and you can check other

726
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 1: people in, which that was a problem for a while too. Uh.

727
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 1: Facebook had again had to tweak some privacy settings because

728
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: the idea was that you could check people into places

729
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: that you were at, and who's to say that you

730
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: were to be honest about that. You know, maybe maybe

731
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of guy who wants to go to

732
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: some sort of seed joint and uh, and I don't

733
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 1: mind that I'm there, and I check in, and I'm like,

734
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: I don't care if people know that I'm in, you know,

735
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,359
Speaker 1: this this biker bar. Then uh, which, by the way,

736
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: I actually to go to biker bar, so hey, there's that.

737
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,840
Speaker 1: But then I think, hey, you know what would be funny.

738
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: Chris is totally not the kind of guy who would

739
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: go to this biker bar, but I'm gonna check him

740
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: in anyway, and then everyone's gonna see that Chris is

741
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 1: at a biker bar even though he's actually at home

742
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,439
Speaker 1: with his family. Yeah. I could have done that. Um,

743
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: they've since tweaked that, so it's not like that anymore.

744
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, that was what are you thinking? You

745
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,400
Speaker 1: kind of have some sort of verification process so that

746
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:22,279
Speaker 1: the person who's being checked in can say, dude, I

747
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: am totally not there, or dude, I totally don't want

748
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:27,880
Speaker 1: people to know I'm there. What if I'm at the

749
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: person who's not my sweetheart giving her this amethyst necklace

750
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 1: I bought. Do you know how much trouble I got

751
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 1: in when I bought the necklace? I am going to

752
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 1: remove the soapbox from this room. Um so Yes, And

753
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 1: by July eleven, the year in which we are recording this,

754
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: they reached seven hundred fifty million users. Yeah. Also in

755
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, that's when they launched the timeline feature, which

756
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: um arranges your your profile page, arranges your wall in

757
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: a interactive time line, with the most recent posts to

758
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: your wall being at the top and the oldest ones

759
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: being at the bottom, with with a certain ones called

760
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: out based upon mostly how many people liked or commented

761
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: on that particular status update. So you might have one

762
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: month where you updated your Facebook page a lot, but

763
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: you're not going to see every single one of those

764
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: entries necessarily represented in your timeline. It will just be

765
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:27,280
Speaker 1: the ones that got the most response. Uh. And because

766
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: Facebook says, well, the algorithm guesses that those have to

767
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: be the most important ones because they had the most activity.

768
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 1: So then you look at your Facebook profile page now

769
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,839
Speaker 1: and it's a reverse timeline. Not everyone has implemented that.

770
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:43,359
Speaker 1: I've noticed because that's some of my friends have yet

771
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: to activate that feature. I activated it during the developer

772
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 1: phase to see what it was all about, and I

773
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: actually kind of think it's neat. It definitely does post

774
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,720
Speaker 1: some privacy issues, but you have to remember that everything

775
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 1: that shows up in that timeline is stuff you have

776
00:45:56,520 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 1: chosen to share on Facebook. It's not like Facebook is

777
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: graping data about you and inserting it into the timeline.

778
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: It's just putting the stuff you've already inserted into the

779
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,800
Speaker 1: the system, uh, and putting it into the timeline itself.

780
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: So if you're careful about what you and put in Facebook,

781
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:19,239
Speaker 1: then you shouldn't have any nasty surprises there. And you

782
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 1: can tweak that too. You can change the setting so

783
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: that not everyone can see it. Facebook also ended up

784
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: implementing a lot of changes that seemed to um bear

785
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:33,359
Speaker 1: some resemblance to another social network that launched in Yeah,

786
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 1: Google Plus. You know Google Plus? Head this I think Yeah.

787
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: Facebook ended up doing a lot of making a lot

788
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: of changes that some people have said was a direct

789
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 1: response to Google Plus, including allowing you to subscribe to

790
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: someone without being their friend. So that you would see

791
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 1: public updates, kind of like you do on Google Plus

792
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: or on Twitter. Also, they created lists that made it

793
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 1: easier to filter people out so that you can publish

794
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 1: updates to specific groups in a very stream line fashion.

795
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: You could already do that for a while, but it

796
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 1: wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do. You

797
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:06,880
Speaker 1: kind of had to know the system pretty well to

798
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: be able to to post to the specific group of

799
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: people you wanted to. Now it's a little bit more intuitive.

800
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,840
Speaker 1: They also included the the little uh was it called

801
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:20,759
Speaker 1: like the little timeline kicker thing? The name of it

802
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:25,799
Speaker 1: as escape ticker, the ticker timeline kicker. There you go,

803
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,959
Speaker 1: the ticker, the ticker on the side the right rail

804
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: where you can see the the live updates that are

805
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 1: going on amongst your friends, which may or may not

806
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: have anything at all to do with you. That can

807
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: sometimes get a little irritating because you can sometimes see

808
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 1: that your friend or your friend is commenting on someone

809
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 1: else's page and you don't know that other persons, so

810
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: you're like, why do I care about that somebody's going

811
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: to post this on our Facebook feed and go kind

812
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 1: of annoying. Well, again, you can change the settings on

813
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 1: your Facebook profile so that the the amount of information

814
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: that will pop up in someone else's ticker is very limited. Now. Yeah,

815
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 1: but if you don't know that, then that means that

816
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: pretty much everything everyone interacts with is going to be

817
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: popping up on tickers of all your friends. That gets

818
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: really pretty irritating. So anyway, that kind of brings us

819
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 1: up to speed. Now, there's lots of other stuff that's

820
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:18,960
Speaker 1: going on with Facebook. It's still not a public company.

821
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 1: It's still a private company. There's a lot of you know,

822
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:27,879
Speaker 1: there's always conjecture about when it will go public if ever. Yep,

823
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:30,399
Speaker 1: there used to be conjecture about who would buy them.

824
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 1: It's more of a conjecture about who who will they buy. Yeah,

825
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: because Facebook has purchased, has acquired several companies over it's

826
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 1: in its past, so it's um and you know, we've

827
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 1: seen it partner with other companies like Spotify. We haven't

828
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: really seen full integration of Spotify. We've seen it integrated

829
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,839
Speaker 1: so that you can see what people are listening to

830
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 1: if they have their settings uh set to public for

831
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,840
Speaker 1: their Spotify accounts. And of course in the United States anyway,

832
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,760
Speaker 1: you now have to log in to Spotify through Facebook

833
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: if you were to create a new account. So that's

834
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,239
Speaker 1: irritated some people who said I wanted to use Spotify,

835
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:10,359
Speaker 1: but I don't want to use Facebook, and now you're

836
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 1: forcing me to do that. So um, yeah, there's still

837
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: some controversy there, and I'm sure there will continue to

838
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 1: be controversy, especially since Zuckerberg himself has on past occasions

839
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:26,040
Speaker 1: made comments that essentially say he believes privacy is a

840
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 1: thing of the past and that people who make a

841
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: fuss over um features that violate privacy are really kind

842
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:38,439
Speaker 1: of out of date, like that's it's no privacy. Since

843
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:41,600
Speaker 1: privacy doesn't matter, then these complaints don't really matter. Although

844
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:44,440
Speaker 1: he'll still go and fine, if it will be it

845
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: will make it be quiet. I'll stop violating a privacy

846
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: so rampantly, or at least so so visibly. Um I

847
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 1: am out of date? Yeah, yeah, no, I'm right there

848
00:49:56,960 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: with you, Pillett. I personally think that some sense of

849
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:04,560
Speaker 1: privacy should be maintained. It doesn't necessarily mean that you

850
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: shouldn't have any uh any presence online, but I don't

851
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 1: think that we should just um feel compelled to share

852
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:14,720
Speaker 1: everything about us all the time. So it's too easy

853
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: for someone to take advantage of you that way. I mean,

854
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 1: we've the both of the guys in this room have

855
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Speaker 1: had bitter experience of folks taking advantage of stuff and

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00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:28,279
Speaker 1: or you know, just unscrupulous people being unscrupulous and you

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Speaker 1: don't want to give them more material to work with.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, that's the story of Facebook. We're gonna wrap

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Speaker 1: this up so it doesn't become the longest episode ever.

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00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:38,919
Speaker 1: If you have anything you would like this talk about,

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Speaker 1: you can email us all right just sys Tech Stuff

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Speaker 1: and How Stuff Work dot com, or you can drop

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Speaker 1: us a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle there

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Speaker 1: is Tech Stuff hs W and Christna. I will talk

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Speaker 1: again really soon. Be sure to check out our new

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Speaker 1: video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Work

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Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities

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