WEBVTT - The Twitter Story Part Two 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.560 Get in Touch with Technology was tech Stuff from stuff 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:14.640 dot Com. Hey everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. This 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.880 is Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren, and it's time for 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.640 us to conclude, at least so far, the story of Twitter. 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:24.720 We started in the last episode with a description of 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.000 how the company, well really how the products started, and 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:30.960 then how the company started around it and kind of 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:35.000 giving a hint of how it was rising prominence. We 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.440 left off towards the end of two thousand eight's We're 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.599 picking up in January two thousand nine, which was an 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:45.120 interesting story. The first major news story scooped by Twitter. Yeah, 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.080 photo from the scene of the the US air airplane 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.000 that had crashed in the Hudson River off of New 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.800 York City was shared on Twitter before the major news 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.600 outlets began covering story at all. Um and that was 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.560 a scoop by Twitter user Janice Crumbs Jay Crumbs, who 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.400 sent the tweet um quote photo length, there's a link 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:05.280 to the photo and then there's a plane in the 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.240 Hudson I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy. Yeah. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.520 I remember that story too, I mean obviously, uh And 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.240 and it was dramatic, you know, hearing all about that 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:20.120 kind of unfolding on Twitter before anyone could could cover 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:24.479 it again, it really showed the potential power of this service. Absolutely. 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.760 At the time, the company still only had twenty nine employees, 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:33.479 which was an increase of by by twenty one employees 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.880 from about two years previous, but still it was It 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.280 was a small, small endeavor relatively. Yeah, when you sit 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.920 there and think about how many people were using the service, 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.080 to think that only twenty nine people were in charge 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.759 of keeping it going might have also explained a little 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:48.880 bit about the frequency of the fail whale, but at 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.160 any rate. In April two thousand nine, Mike Massimino made 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:57.400 the first tweet from outer space. But it wasn't like 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.360 con I just think of that whenever I think of 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.240 space now. His message was from orbit launch was awesome. 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:08.120 I am feeling great, working hard and enjoying the magnificent views. 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.720 The adventure of a lifetime has begun. There were a 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:13.399 lot of exclamation marks in that too. To be fair, 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.720 he was in space. He was in space that I 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.160 would use exclamation points even more than I already do 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.240 if I were in space. Yeah, I think I think 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.040 you would just hear me shouting exuberantly, and there'll probably 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.720 be some expletives in there, but joyous expletives. Would you 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.519 hear you shouting from space? If I'm actually in space, 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.080 then no, But that's an entirely different podcast where we 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.799 can talk about why you don't hear in space at 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.400 any rate. In May of two thousand nine, the billionth 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.280 tweet was sent um and no, I have no idea 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.400 what it was, and I'm still guessing it was something 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:48.079 about lunch. Lunch. That's a good guess. You know, it's 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:51.880 statistically it's likely either lunch or someone complaining about some 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.160 other social networking service that those those are two safe 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.480 bets with Twitter. Um, And as much as I joke 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.840 about obviously I love Twitter, I wouldn't have made the 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:04.120 teen thousands of In early June two thousand nine, Twitter 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.600 introduced verification. Now, this is another one of those little 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.560 controversial subjects. The idea was that it was to verify 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:17.280 certain high profile Twitter accounts, celebrities basically, yeah, so that 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.079 people would know that this is actually that person. It's 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.240 not someone for the marketing team and not someone to 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.880 be them, right right, It might be it might technically 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.720 be someone pretending to be them, but on an official capacity, right, 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.919 Like it might be someone's handler who is in charge 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.560 of the Twitter feed and they have to tweet like 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:37.880 three times a day or something. But you know, it 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.520 was really meant to let people feel more secure that 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.080 the person they were following was actually who they were following, 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.120 but it became kind of a weird sort of semi 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.720 status symbol, the idea big enough to be verified. Yeah, 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:54.280 and I mean I've got a lot of friends in 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.120 the technology space who have verified accounts. You know, I 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:03.160 don't and doesn't, so I don't know what is holding 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.080 you up, Gweitter, We are important. I mean, I'm getting 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:11.160 a little choked up. But you know, I realized that 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.760 there's nothing that comes along with verification other than the 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.760 sense that your your life means something and self worth 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.280 their pride. Right. Obviously we are making light of this, 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.800 but there there's been some confusion around verification as well, 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.120 because I know that there have been at least some 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:33.280 accounts that were verified and then through some means, became unverified. Um, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:38.760 they're also cases of companies, like uh, companies actually buddying 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.160 up to Twitter, and at least this is the this 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.479 is allegedly I don't know if this is exactly true, 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.960 but allegedly some companies paying a good amount for Twitter 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:50.839 uh promoted tweets, which we'll get to in a little 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.880 bit um, and then in return they end up getting 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.640 verified accounts for all the people who work for that company. 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.760 Uh so uh. And there's some people who have turned 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.720 down verification because they were afraid it would hurt their 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.159 Twitter Street cred. I didn't even know there was such 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.360 a thing at any rate. To be more serious, in 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.839 June two thousand nine, Twitter was being used by Iranian 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.960 citizens to communicate during anti government protests. It was called 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.039 the Twitter Revolution, and that would lay the ground for 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.720 later uses of Twitter in political uh statements and and 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:28.400 and anti government statements around the world, probably most notably 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.760 in two thousand eleven with the rise of the Arab Spring, 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.680 which was a series of revolutions in the Middle East 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.000 and Africa. So Twitter is now being used as a 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:41.080 means of communication when other more official lines of communication 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.479 are inhibited are either down or right or being purposefully 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.520 blocked right. So I mean again, this this is really 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.640 showing that Twitter is a powerful tool beyond this kind 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.039 of you know, superfluous, silly use that. A lot of 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:57.800 people said that's all you know, people on Twitter just 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.719 waste time, But no, it was really being an instrument 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:05.160 of change. Sure absolutely. Um. Dick Costello joined the company 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.120 as the new CEO. UM He had formerly worked as 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.480 an exact for Google, like many of our other Twitter founders, 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.200 although I guess they weren't always exacts, but had previously 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:20.080 worked for Google. Um and was. Costello was a co 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.520 founder and or the CEO of FeedBurner for a while. 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.720 Oh yeah, yeah, another popular service at the time. And 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.159 then also at that time, in two thousand nine, co 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.560 founder Jack Dorsey co founded another company, a company called Square, 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.080 And we should probably cover that at some point because 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:41.599 it's something that's really changed small businesses. Yeah. So Square, 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.800 for those who don't know, it's a credit card processing 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.839 service and you can use one of those little gadgets 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.080 that hooks into Yeah, it's like a little swipe dongle 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.960 that you've ever seen someone with a with a little white, 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.640 square shaped dongle attached to their phone that swiped their 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:57.719 credit card on it. That is what that is. Yeah. 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.520 So it is that hardware and the saw toware that 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.200 works together so that you can process credit card payment. 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:05.559 It's really savvy. It's for it's for a relatively small 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.320 transaction payment. And uh and I think that they send 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.480 you the dongle for free at this point. Yeah, and 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:15.600 it ended up being well, we'll see a decent success 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.400 Square has Square is certainly done very well. So Jack 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:23.360 Dorsey continues to make some pretty big splashes in the 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.200 technology world. February tenth, two thousand ten, that's when Twitter 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:32.240 usage hit fifty million tweets per day. So according to 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.520 Twitter employee Kevin Well, the daily increase from two thousand 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.280 eight to two thousand nine in frequency of tweets was 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.800 one thousand, four hundred percent, and they said that the 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.800 service was averaging six hundred tweets per second. Uh. Four 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.480 hundred and thirty three of those were coming from Errington. 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:54.160 Michael Arrington. It's just a joke. Please don't come after me, 0:07:54.280 --> 0:08:00.320 Mr Arrington. April that is when Twitter launches promoted eats, 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:04.000 but on a very limited basis, right They Promoted tweets 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.000 are those tweets that companies can pay to push into 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.239 many different users feeds, even if that user doesn't follow 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.080 the company's account. Um. And one of the cool things 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.200 about promoted tweets is that if it's not performing well, 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.320 if people are not retweeting and interacting with it, then 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.000 they'll pull the tweet from the promotion feed. Right. So 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.720 that way, if you haven't checked your your Twitter feed 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.120 in a little bit and it's they've already pulled it, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.280 you're not going to see that. It's not going to 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:32.000 clutter things up. But if it's something that a lot 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.400 of people are interacting with, then presumably you could be 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.800 interested in it and it might end up being something 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.319 that you you then interact with, the idea being that 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.520 everyone wins in this situation, right right, Right, it's content 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:46.920 that was already on Twitter, that was already going to 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.880 be on Twitter. And this was a huge part of 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.800 the contribution that Costello was making to the company at 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.520 the time, wherein he was going like, no, there are 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.360 ways to monetize this, and this was kind of the 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.480 initial solution for getting some money into this company other 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.800 than from pure investment funding, right, because you can only 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.000 do that for so long before investors say, hey, I'd 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.040 like some of that back. How was this an investment 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.439 and not a charitable donation, right? And that, I mean, 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.600 that was a big question this is we're talking about. Remember, 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.439 the service was launching around two thousand six, and two 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:22.640 thousand seven was when it got big in it south 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:26.040 by Southwest. Years have passed and this is the first 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.800 time we start seeing a real move to monetization. That 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:30.960 was a big deal. Oh yeah. They would go on 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.839 to launch promoted trends and promoted accounts later, right, And 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.160 they did have some specific rules about promoted tweets. They 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.080 companies could only promote their own tweets. So if I 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.760 am a fan of Lauren's company and I send out 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.720 a message about how awesome Lauren's company is, she couldn't 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.200 promote my tweet about her company. And that's mostly in 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.679 the United States due to the Federal Trade Commission having 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.440 a ban on commercial appropriation. And if you're wondering what 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.480 the difference is between that and Facebook's thing where they 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:07.360 can advertise which companies your friends like, like Capital l 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:09.800 like on Facebook to you in order to tell you 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.319 about that company. That's different because they're only saying that 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.320 this person has expressed an interest. It's not appropriation of 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.920 actual content, right. They're not taking something that your friend 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.800 has written and then presenting it to you as an ad. 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.280 They're just saying, Hey, your friend likes this, You like 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.120 your friend, don't you also like this? By the transitive 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.240 property of like. By the way, that doesn't always work, 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.439 my friends like some really terrible stuff. I agree entirely. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.120 Um And yeah, I mean, you know, this is probably 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.360 really obvious to many people listening to this who are 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.760 in in internet industry kind of jobs. But I mean, 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:48.079 you know, running a really popular website is not free. 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:49.640 It's that you have to You have to keep up 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:51.600 as servers. There's a lot of equipment involved, you have 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.880 to engineer all of its software. There's electricity bills. I mean, 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.719 if your servers start to get towards the end of 0:10:57.720 --> 0:10:59.800 their useful life, you have to replace them. I mean, 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:05.960 the real So obviously this was a big, big step 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.560 for Twitter, and a very important one. Another one of 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.720 those things, um that also happened in April of the 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.160 company announced that they would be collaborating to preserve tweets 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.320 with the Library of Congress. Um And and that's that's 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.560 after a six month delay. Tweets are submitted for internal 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.280 library use, non commercial research, public display by the library, 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.120 and general preservation. Yeah. That that terrifies me to know 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.000 that someone can go and do research about all the 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:38.160 stupid jokes I've made about various science fiction films, and 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.000 but I I couched them in the way that sounds 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.200 like I'm saying something really important. Not that I've done that, 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:48.800 say on this very podcast, like in the last episode twice. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.520 But yeah, you know it was. It was kind of 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.079 a big deal. In the same day. Actually, I'm sure 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.520 that the two were related. Google announced Google Replay, which 0:11:57.559 --> 0:11:59.440 is a search function that lets you see what was 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.720 being publically tweeted about on any given day in history. 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.080 I mean any given day in history back to the 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.680 company's origins in two thousand six. Although that hasn't stopped 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.240 some some really enterprising people creating some amazing joke Twitter 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.080 accounts of historical figures as if they had been tweeting 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.080 Chac tweet is one of my favorite things. That's a 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.839 good one. There's also some who was it I want 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.400 to say it was it was. There was a Twitter 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.840 feed where it was going through a journal of I 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.840 think it was John Adams and tweeting the journal entries 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.679 that he made because he made very short one and 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.520 they tweeted it in time with in the calendar year 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.559 as the same as the journal entry, which was really cool. Yeah, 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.680 that's an amazing that's an amazingly nerdy history project. And 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.960 then there was like Romeo and Juliet that did the 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.840 whole play through tweets. I actually don't want to see 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.719 what Romeo or Juliet's Twitter feeds would have been, Like, 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.240 I think I'm too old for that. I total love you. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:00.760 Was that was excepting I am I hope I hope 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.920 that it was at least in I am big pentameter. Right. Uh, 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.319 I want to say, yes, there were a lot of 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.120 people using Twitter in very creative ways whenever they could, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:17.600 because Twitter was still occasionally experiencing, uh, periods of high 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:22.520 usage that interrupted service, like little sporting events that happened 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.040 the summer, like the World Cup, a little thing called 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.920 the World Cup. Yeah, this this havoc on Twitter this year. 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.880 UM tweets per second hit over three thousand when Spain 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.400 shot that winning goal. Uh, spoiler alert if you're going 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.840 back and watching the old World Cup for we were 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:43.839 sorry that we ruined it for you are bad. Um. 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.679 The peak of tweets per second for the whole Cup 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.760 was was three thousand, two hundred and eighty three per second. Um, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.760 It's engineers. Twitter's engineers were basically not leaving work that 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:59.160 entire time in order to continually implement emergency expansion features, 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.600 only to have all their implementations be immediately overwhelmed. Yea. 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.280 So they're building out extra capacity and that capacity gets 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.240 filled as soon as it's available. Yeah. Um. And this 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:12.760 was sort of the officially unofficial or unofficially official point 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.720 at which Twitter got really serious about making that whole 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.680 fail whale thing obsoletely right, the idea of being to 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:25.240 build out so much capacity that, barring any serious electrical 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.640 problem or some other massive equipment failure, it just was 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:33.600 not going to go down. So August, Twitter also launched 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.480 fast follow for cell phone users in the United States. 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.960 This allows anyone to receive tweets on their phone via SMS, 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.880 even if they don't have a Twitter account, um, which 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.200 is a really interesting feature because it shows that Twitter 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.600 was keyed into the fact that people were using this 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.720 in um in emergency situations as part of political protests 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.920 in other areas where you know, it's really difficult to 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.400 get news out to people and crowd control can be 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:07.800 incredibly important, and so so you know, That's fascinating to 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.320 me that that Twitter was aware that it was you 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.560 know that that a they were they were trying to 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.400 make money. Um, you know, they were going to corporations 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:19.480 like McDonald's and whatever, and and soliciting money from for 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.480 advertising from them, and also working with the Library of 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:27.280 Congress and also building out this kind of SMS stuff. 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:29.440 You know that they their web client had been live 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.320 for a really long time at this point. I think 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.480 that most people were using Twitter on the web rather 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.240 than or or on our on apps at this point, 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.040 rather than via SMS. But they were still supporting features 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.160 for that original SMS space. It's it's interesting because you know, 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:49.760 the original approach was making it SMS centric. Uh. It's 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:51.320 just that by the time I got to know it, 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.280 I was thinking of it more of as a web 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.640 thing than an SMS mostly because I didn't want to 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:58.840 have to pay a whole lot of extra money for 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.800 tons of text messages. Here's the thing about the United States, 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.080 in case some of our our listeners in other places 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.280 may not be aware of this, but the policy for 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:12.360 a lot of the telecommunications companies here is that you 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:14.920 pay for text messages, not only that you send out 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.680 but that you received. So if you don't send a 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:19.600 lot of text messages out, but you get a lot 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:21.320 because you have a lot of friends who just they 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:24.520 love the text uh and and it goes over your limit, 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:26.200 you are the one who pays for that. Actually, they 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.960 might be paying for it too. You can get some 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.560 double dipping in this. Even if both of you belong 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.920 to the same uh, the same provider, you might end 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.240 up having both people charged for all these texts. And 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:40.920 so that was a problem, you know, for people who 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.880 want to use Twitter that way. But someday I'm going 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:46.840 to do a full episode about some of the crazy 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:51.280 differences in the way telecommunications companies operate in various countries, 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:53.280 because I know there are some people from other countries 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.000 when they hear about that and like, wait, I have 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.760 to pay to if I received too many texts? How 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.280 do I control that? Apart from threaten people who text me? 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:04.920 And I found that that's pretty effective. Well, that's true, 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.360 that's true. If you develop a certain type of personality, 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.800 you can you know, cultivate that kind of behavior around 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:14.440 your friends. But um, yeah, so anyway, tangent aside, let's 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.520 get back to the history. So October, we see another 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.800 big change in executive management, right Coastalo would transition at 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.520 that point from CEO to CEO. I'm replacing Evan Williams. 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:30.440 He says, he'll be concentrating on product strategy. I don't 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.640 know really necessarily what that means other than just, you know, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.840 here's some more stuff we want Twitter to do, y'all. Anyway, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.600 it wasn't stepping down from that public kind of role. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.840 having someone who I mean, Costello obviously, with his his 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.240 focus on monetizing Twitter had really started to transform the 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.760 company already, So it was time for that transition to 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.560 go from let's build the service up to let's really 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.080 make this a company. And uh, we've got a lot 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.520 more to say, but before we do, let take a 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:04.160 quick break to thank our sponsor. All Right, So now 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:09.000 we're up to March of and Twitter is um busy. Yeah. 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.480 Twitter users are at this point sending a billion tweets 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.440 per week. And keep in mind that it's only been 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:18.119 two years since the billionth tweet period was sent out, right, 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.720 so now they're matching that every week. It took it 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:23.520 took that many years to get to a billion, and 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:25.879 now we're seeing that on a weekly basis. Yeah, the 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.400 average number of tweets sent per day have nearly tripled 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.280 in the past year. And Twitter has got a few 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.239 more people than twenty eight folks working for it now 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:38.160 right about fo Yeah? Yeah, And at that point, Jack 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:42.520 Dorsey's title changes to executive chairman. His focus is also 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.439 on product development. Uh. And according to an article in 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.840 The New York Times, no one at Twitter directly reports 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.000 for Dorsey, perhaps lending some credence to those those Um 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.440 employees who said that he was not the easiest man 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.680 to work directly for. So he may still be doing 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.399 quite influential work at Twitter, but he doesn't have a 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:07.560 team reporting to him. Uh. May Twitter acquires tweet Deck, 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.280 And boy did that get some people riled up, Because 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:12.600 here's the other thing that Twitter, you know, we we 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.720 mentioned in the previous episode. I think that Twitter has 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.679 is known for taking ideas that people have created on 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.680 Twitter and then incorporating it directly into the service. Yeah, 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.160 that's what tweet Tech was. It was a dashboard app 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.400 that had been developed starting way back in tight by 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:33.240 a London programmer named Ian Dodsworth. So once again we 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.639 see Twitter saying that's a brilliant idea, let's buy it 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.080 and make it part of ours. Another thing is that 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:43.560 you know, Twitter has been very uh careful about other 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:48.240 services coming out that could take traffic away from Twitter, 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.320 and but using the Twitter the Twitter service as its foundation, 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:56.040 and uh, you know, some people see it as anti competitive, 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.840 some people see it as being um harmful to developers. 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:03.119 Some people just see it as a company that's trying 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.679 to make the best product it possibly can. There are 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.680 a lot of different sides to the story, and personally, 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.040 for me, it's a case by case basis. There's sometimes 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.680 where I just think, oh, but I really liked using 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:15.400 that thing that now I don't know if it will 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.040 exist anymore. Um, so it ends up being almost it's 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.480 it's like a matter of bias. So I won't really 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:24.879 weigh in. I will say I use tweet deck a lot. 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:26.760 Oh yeah, yeah, I think that's why we both used 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.639 to keep up with everything. It's incredibly Yeah, if you 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.480 have more than one Twitter account that you follow. For example, 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:34.720 I have my own personal one, Lauren has her own 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.399 personal one, and we both also oversee the tech Stuff 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:41.000 hs W Twitter account, So if you ever see a 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:45.280 tweet from tech Stuff hs W, it's either Lauren or 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.879 it's yours truly who's making that. We're the ones who 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.159 handle that. We don't have a handler. We've asked, no 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:54.920 one wants, No one wants to handle us, So it's 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.040 just us at this point. So yeah, But anyway, tweet 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:00.320 deck really lets you use multiple accounts and oversee them 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.960 and manage them and even post as different ones very easily. 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:08.840 Oh sure sure. Um. Also in May, another really famous 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:14.640 tweet was tweeted twin Yeah, twittin, I like that. Yeah. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:18.440 This one was helicopter hovering over a Badabad at one 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:23.000 am in parentheses is a rare event closed parentheses. So 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.320 this one came from a fellow named so I Attar 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.159 who was not He didn't realize at the moment, but 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.520 he was actually live tweeting the raid on Osama bin 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:36.280 Laden's hideout. Yeah. So this was how the news broke 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.600 to the public, and then of course later the news 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.040 was more officially released. But and at first no one 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.360 was aware that this had any significance to it other 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.320 than some sort of military exercise happening in that area 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.320 of the world. But as the details were starting to 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:57.439 come out, people realized, Wow, this guy, this guy was 0:21:57.520 --> 0:21:59.879 there when it happened, and it was another example of 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:05.280 Twitter can be a tool to to report world changing 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:08.400 news as it's happening, and it turns everyone who uses 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:13.720 Twitter into a reporter, big deal, making it kind of 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.480 easier to do that. In June, Twitter struck a deal 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.600