WEBVTT - Where are the alternatives to Facebook? 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.920 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.680 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.160 and a lot of all things tech. Over the last 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.360 couple of years, I've covered a lot of stories that 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:29.760 were either directly about Facebook or they related back to 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:34.840 the social media platform in some way. From Cambridge Analytica, 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:36.879 you know that whole scandal. There are a couple of 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.320 episodes about that. Two calls from the US government to 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.320 break up some big tech companies. That's back in the news. 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.639 As I record this, Facebook has had a lot of coverage. 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.680 It has been front and center, particularly over the last 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.680 couple of years. There are a lot of good arguments 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.200 to suggest people would be better off if they were 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.440 not on Facebook, if they weren't using it, didn't have 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.280 an account there, And there is plenty of evidence that 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:10.039 shows that misinformation campaigns and extremist groups are leveraging Facebook's 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.479 algorithms to get widespread coverage and momentum, that they are 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:19.920 using the social networking site for malicious purposes, and because 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.640 the site ends up benefiting from this through the whole 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:27.880 advertising realm, they have been largely complicit, or at least 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.360 they haven't cracked down on it as much as they 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.280 a lot of people feel they should have until fairly recently. 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.840 Now all that being said, I gotta be upfront with you, guys, 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.440 I still have a Facebook profile over there, and I 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:47.240 am still on Facebook way too much. It is a 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.640 complicated thing because I recognize that it would probably be 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.040 better if I were not on there, but it's where 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.600 most of my friends maintain a social presence, and particularly 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.840 in the era of COVID, I can't get together with 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:02.840 my friends in person, and even before COVID was a thing, 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.320 it was hard to find time for all of us 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.919 to get together in person anyway. So for folks like me, 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:13.760 staying on Facebook can feel like it's necessity unless I'm 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.680 just willing to cut ties with my friends. I mean, 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.600 it's not like people talk on the phone anymore, right Like, 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.480 especially my younger friends, the thought of them getting on 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.400 the phone for a conversation, to actually talk on the 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:31.080 phone fills a lot of them with anxiety. So I 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.799 feel like there aren't a whole lot of alternatives. And 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.560 this got me to thinking that I really wish there 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:41.080 were a viable social networking alternative to Facebook. You know, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.960 a social media platform that could serve as a place 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.079 to connect with people, but one that doesn't rely on 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.839 Facebook's model of engagement, which in turn gives a leg 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:55.080 up on those malicious campaigns I mentioned. But we've seen 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.320 social media platforms come and go, and none have really 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.520 managed to have staying power, and the ones that are 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:07.280 still around are definitely not challenging Facebook for superiority. So 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.360 today I thought we would go through some social media 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:14.840 platforms that either predated Facebook and then faded away, or 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:19.160 they tried to challenge Facebook but failed in some way. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.720 Facebook launched in two thousand four, and there were several 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.880 social networking sites that existed before that. One of the earliest, 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.040 and by some accounts, the first true social networking site 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:39.160 was six degrees dot com, which launched in n Now, 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.320 I'm sure most of you are familiar with the concept 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:47.280 of six degrees of separation, that any two people in 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:52.240 the world are at most six social connections apart from 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.640 one another. So the degrees in this case talk about 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.520 those social links. So, for example, I have met the 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:04.800 actor Colleen Camp and she was Inclue the movie Madeline 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:09.040 Khan was also include the movie and Madeline Khan was 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:13.480 in Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder. So I am two 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.599 degrees separated from the late great Gene Wilder and one 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.960 degree separated from the late great Madeline Khan, and that 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.119 there are two social contacts that link me with Gene 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.600 Wilder and one social contact that links me with Madeleine 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.839 con that being calling Camp. Now to call calling Camp 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:36.520 a social contact as being grandiose. She likely has no 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:38.800 memory of me, whatsoever. I met her one day on 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.599 a movie set. It's just an example I wanted to use. Now, 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.719 if I went through all of my social contacts, like 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:49.080 every single person with whom I have a connection, I 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:53.600 might find that my link to Gene Wilders even closer. 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:57.000 It may be that one of my friends or acquaintances 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.720 worked directly with Gene Wilder. But you get the idea. 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.400 And this concept was turned into something of a game, 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.120 the famous game of six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, where 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.599 you would try to find the fewest number of professional 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.599 acting links between Kevin Bacon and some other actor. So 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.640 you would just name different films that the actors were 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.360 in to try and find a link to Kevin Bacon. 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:23.640 The joke being that Kevin Bacon was in so much 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:27.200 stuff that you frequently didn't have to go more than 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:32.000 three links before you you found a connection. Anyway, six 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.919 degrees dot Com was a social platform where you could 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.960 upload photos and you could connect with friends, you know, 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.640 the basic stuff of making a profile and connecting with 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.640 people that all social networks sort of share in common. 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.760 And you could also then see the folks that your 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.800 friends are friends with, so you could connect with people 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.920 up to three degrees out from your personal contacts. And 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.760 it was one of those early platforms that really demonstrated, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.760 you know, that small world phenomenon, how our social circles 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.640 have way more overlap in them than we typically realize. 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.479 I'm sure you had an experience where you saw two 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.680 friends that you know from very different circles in life 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.440 talking with one another and think, how do they know 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.960 each other? Because in my world, this person belongs to 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.040 this group of friends and that person belongs to this 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.600 totally disconnected group of friends. That happens a lot, and 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.840 six degrees dot com was kind of about illustrating that. 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:30.880 But there was a problem. You see, now in n 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.200 a lot of folks had not really yet ventured into 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.239 the Internet world at large, or the World Wide Web 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:42.880 in particular. So while a relatively large number of people 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.320 were signing up for six degrees dot com, you often 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.880 felt really isolated on the site because while there were 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.520 a lot of people collectively, it's not like a lot 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.839 of people everyone knew were on there at the same time. 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.040 So there were just not enough people that folks do. 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.520 There weren't enough friends or acquaintances. Also, on six degrees, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.160 it was like a bunch of disconnected individuals who were 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.000 on there, So it's more like a bunch of tiny 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:14.800 island chains separated by vast oceans than an interconnected social network. 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:20.560 A media called youth Stream Media, which specialized in developing 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.720 Internet sites with the youth market in mind, typically you know, 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.080 like high school and college kids, ended up purchasing six 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.320 degrees dot com in nine for a cool one hundred 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:36.760 twenty five million dollars, a princely sum indeed, But youth 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:41.120 stream apparently couldn't do much with six degrees, and a 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.640 year later the site would go dark. Just two years 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:49.600 after that, another company called Alloy acquired youth Stream Media's assets, 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:54.840 the entire company's assets for just seven million dollars now 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:56.800 seven million dollars a lot of money. I know, saying 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.280 just makes it sound like it's not. But when you 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:04.160 consider that youth stream paid a D five million for 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:09.160 six degrees and then another company bought youth Streams assets 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.000 for just seven million dollars, you really see where the 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.720 value of that company plummeted. So what happened, Well, the 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:19.120 dot com bubble burst for one thing, as for six 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.320 degrees dot com, and eventually returned in some form or another. 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.560 Though I honestly don't know what it looks like today 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.240 because when I went to go check it out with 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.160 my browser as part of my research for this episode, 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.959 my browser told me, yo, buddy, I really don't think 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:40.360 you should go in there, essentially saying the site is insecure, 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.800 possibly a host of malware, and I don't want any 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:48.520 of that garbage on my computer. So I quietly backed away. Now, 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.840 six degrees dot com wasn't a bad idea. It was 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.880 just way ahead of its time. There weren't enough people, 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.880 there wasn't enough saturation on the web to make the 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.640 model work. But the idea behind it was obviously solid. 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.720 Because anyone who has studied social networks online or otherwise 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:10.520 would recognize the value proposition. Now, a few other folks 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.400 would try to launch social networking sites over the next 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.760 couple of years, but I think it's fair to say 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:20.000 that the first that got some mainstream traction was Friendster, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:22.840 and that one would come out in two thousand two, 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.640 so five years after six Degrees had originally launched, and 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:31.720 two years before Facebook would launch. Now, Friendster was founded 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.240 by Jonathan Abrams and Peter Chen, and this site also 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.120 subscribed to that six degrees of separation concept. If you 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.480 looked at someone's profile, you'd see how you were connected 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.360 to that person and whether or not it was a 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.880 close connection, so perhaps you might have a mutual friend 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.400 in common with that person, or you would see if 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.600 it was a more tenuous connection, like I know someone 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.160 who knows someone who knows someone who knows that person 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.120 kind of thing. And like a lot of social networking sites, 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.960 it was used primarily by people who are looking to 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.080 find a date um or at least a lot of 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:11.439 people were using it that way. Maybe primarily is too 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.520 strong a word, but it was a popular use for 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:18.640 the site. Oh and uh profiles also had a view 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.040 counter attached them. Fun times. Now, I don't know if 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:26.120 you guys remember when it seemed like every web page 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.360 on the Internet required a view counter. It's a little 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.560 counter up in typically you know, the top of the page, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.320 maybe in the corner, and it would just tell you 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.760 how many people had visited the website. And it became 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.199 a way to gauge not just the popularity of the 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:47.280 web page or website, but also by extension, it gave 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.000 an implication of whether or not the site was a 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:53.240 good quality, you know, the idea being that if that 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.040 many people have visited the site, then it must be 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.280 doing something right. And we still see elements of this today, 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.480 of course, you like in view numbers for YouTube videos 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.520 or how many people like or share a post on 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.200 various social media sites or tweets, that kind of thing, 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.320 but we don't typically see them on web pages as 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:17.040 much these days now. Finster started strong, but with popularity 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.120 comes challenges, and one of those was just in scaling. 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.720 As more people were joining the site and we're making 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.880 profiles and uploading photos and interacting with one another, the 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.280 company had to scale up the back end systems and 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:35.040 this became challenging. Google would actually come forward and make 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.920 an offer of thirty million dollars to acquire the company 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:42.400 in two thousand three, but the business owners turned that 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.079 offer down, and that was probably one of the reasons 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:50.960 the company would later remove the founder, Jonathan Abrams as 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.120 CEO in two thousand four, the idea of we could 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.400 have cashed out and you said no. Following Abram's departure 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:03.000 as CEO, there was the old revolving door routine of 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.240 other CEOs. I mean, seriously, if you look at a list, 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.439 it's just like one replaced by another, typically more than 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:14.160 one in a year, which is really bad. And users 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.400 began to abandon the site. They were frustrated by performance 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.720 problems and that linked back to those challenges with scaling, 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.720 and the users were flocking over to another social networking site, 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.600 one that for a while seemed like it was going 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:31.800 to be the definitive social networking platform, my Space, because 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.520 this was, you know, a little bit later after my 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:36.800 Space had gotten started. But we'll get back to my 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.200 Space later in this episode. Before that, I should probably 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:44.840 explain what actually happened with Friendster. It floundered as a 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.160 social media platform for several more years. It lasted long 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:52.200 enough to see my Space eventually falled behind the upstart 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.560 competitor of Facebook. Spoiler alert there as if you didn't know. 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.040 But in two thousand eleven, friends to changed from a 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.240 social networking platform to more of a social gaming network. 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.600 And this was really kind of an effort to get 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.800 out of the trap and had found itself in by 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.360 competing directly with Facebook. It couldn't do that, that was 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:19.000 clearly a lost cause. So Friendster would instead operate as 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.760 a social gaming network and they did that for a 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.960 few more years, but ultimately shut down in t and 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:30.120 the brand is pretty much non existent today. So with Friendster, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.559 we have a social networking site that pre existed Facebook, 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:37.160 but was enable to scale to serve a growing user 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:41.720 base and thus giving opportunities to competitors. And the next 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.680 platform I should talk about is high five. It's Hi 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.160 and the numeral five. This is a social network site 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.160 that made a profit in its first year of operation. 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.000 It was actually a profitable web based business right at 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.880 the gate, not a very common thing even today now. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.199 This is according to CBS News. By the way, there 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.120 was an entrepreneur named Ramu Yala Manchi who founded the 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.280 site in two thousand three. And I do apologize for 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:14.000 my pronunciation of his name. I am terribly ignorant, and 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.000 that is all on me. But anyway, while I was 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.080 researching this episode and I came across High five, I thought, huh, 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.520 that's a social networking site. I don't think I've ever 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:28.880 heard of before, except maybe I have, because apparently I 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.240 already created a profile for it. See high five is 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.920 still around today, at least theoretically it is. And so 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:38.920 I thought, you know what I'll do. I'll make a 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.960 profile on there. I'll create a profile to check out 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.520 what this site looks like. Only when I tried to 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.480 do that, when I tried to make a profile with 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.640 my my private email address, I got a message that 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.600 said that my email was blocked, which was odd because 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:59.080 it's not like I'm using a particularly you know, shady 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.840 email service. It's Gmail for those who want to know, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.760 it's nothing bad. So I thought, how that's weird. Well, 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.000 maybe what that means is that I may have already 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.880 made a high five accountant. I just forgot about it. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.840 So I chose the forgot my password feature, you know 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.760 that useful thing, and then I put my email address 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.000 in the little field and I hit the button, and 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:23.440 the site said it was going to send an email 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.640 to me with instructions on how I could log in, 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.720 and as of this moment, I have not received that email. 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:33.720 That was hours ago when I I did that. Nothing 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.840 has happened since. So there are a few possibilities. One 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.600 is that it's just taking a really long time. Maybe 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.320 High five servers are few and far between and overloaded. 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.720 Another possibility is that the site just isn't active like 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.800 I had been led to believe, and that it's really dormant. 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:54.640 I can't really find any information that says one way 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.440 or the other. Another possibility is that I never had 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:02.440 a profile on there, and everyone gets the message about 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.600 an email being sent, whether they have a profile on 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:07.600 High five or not, if they go through that whole 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.320 forgot my password process. So I could find that out 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.200 by just making up a fake email address and or 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.240 making a brand new email address even and putting it 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.160 in the field, but I didn't go through that that phase. 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.440 I was already fed up, so I did try to 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.800 sign in or sign up with my work email address, 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.160 and that didn't work either. So honestly, I'm just not 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.600 sure if there's anything going on at High five or not. 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:36.560 I mean, there is a page there. It's not like 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.080 it goes to you know, some page that says that 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.200 you can get the the U r L or anything, 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.040 but I can't make it do anything. But anyway, High 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.120 five started off as another social network site where you 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.640 would create a profile with information about yourself. There was 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.280 supposed to be an age restriction. Users were supposed to 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.640 be at least thirteen years old, but the site had 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.520 no means of authenticating a person's age, so you know, 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.760 there you go. The site would prompt new users to 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.800 add friends through their contacts with existing services like Yahoo 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.720 mail or hot mail, and boy those take me back. 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.159 And users could customize their profile pages. They could do 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.240 stuff like change the background color of their profile. They 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.959 can move things around on their profile if they wanted to. 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.800 They could even go into HTML editing mode and really 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.240 change things up and customize things if they if they 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.800 so desired. But from the reports I've read, very few 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:35.479 people went to the trouble of doing that. Uh. And 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.520 it also, like its predecessors, was tying into that that 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.720 concept of six degrees of separation. Now, like for Inster 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.000 and like some others that will be on this list, 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.040 High five would attempt to evolve as sites like my 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:53.800 Space and later Facebook began to dominate the social networking sphere. 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.320 In two thousand nine, the site changed into more of 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:00.840 a social gaming site, similar to why happened with Friendster. 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.960 A company called Tagged acquired High fives assets in two 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.600 thousand eleven, and then Tagged itself would get scooped up 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.840 by a company called The Meat Group. That's m E 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.680 E T, not M E A T, which is a 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.840 totally different and frankly horrifying company, but anyway, the Meat 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.480 Group got them in two thousand seventeen. Jumping back to 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.439 two thousand three, couple of months after High five launched, 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:31.080 we got my Space. Now I've done full episodes about 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.040 my Space and the whole story of the rise and 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.840 fall the platform is fascinating. There's a ton of drama 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:38.800 going on there, So for this episode, I'm not going 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:40.719 to go into all that detail. I'll give you more 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.040 of a high overview, and I'll do that after we 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:57.560 take this short break. My Space was monumentally successful in 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.560 the early days of social networking. You had your customizable 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.520 profile pages, similar to what High five was doing. There 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:09.560 was a fairly robust music industry presence on MySpace from 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.400 the get go, and it became something of a hallmark 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.840 that if you had a MySpace page, you would add 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:20.120 songs to your profile uh and someone visiting your profile 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.919 would be treated or would be forced to endure the 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.920 music you had selected. If you were particularly mischievous, you 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:32.159 could design your profile page so that the playback controls 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.800 like pause and and play and everything we're very hard 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.600 to find on the page, so that people who did 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.840 visit your profile would have no option but to listen 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:45.520 to whatever music you had selected. But gosh darn it, 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.600 I needed everyone to really groove to Tarzan Boy by Baltimore. 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.800 It was important. This was also the site where you 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.280 would have your top eight friends. You could have lots 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.280 and lots of MySpace friends, but on your a file 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.480 page you would only see the top eight listed. In 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.840 the early days, and Tom, one of the founders of 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.320 my Space, was automatically your friend from the beginning. You 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:12.320 could give him the boot if you wanted to, but 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.199 Tom was everyone's friend when they first joined my Space. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.720 Not Tom. What a mench Now. For the first few 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.560 years of its existence, it seemed as though my Space 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.080 was going to be the definitive social networking site. It 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.639 was like, this is this company is just on the 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.520 up and up. News Core, the company that owned Fox News, 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.960 among lots of other stuff. Rubert Murdoch's company, in other words, 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.160 would end up buying my Space in two thousand five 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:43.680 for more than half a billion dollars at truly princely 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.080 some and in two thousand six my Space became the 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:51.280 most visited site on the entire web. It was valued 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:56.320 at twelve billion dollars in two thousand and seven. It 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.040 was just astounding, like you would think it's too big 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:04.640 to fail, right, and then it failed. Funny how that happens. 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.280 So my Space did very well early on, but it 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:11.720 didn't have fierce competition either Facebook, which cut on with 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.600 college kids because when it first debuted, Facebook membership was 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.600 exclusive to people who had a university or college email address. 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.320 You couldn't join if you didn't, so it was almost 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.760 entirely college kids when it launched. Anyway, it ended up 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.200 getting a ton of momentum after that launch and when 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:32.520 it opened up to the general public, and it was 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:36.240 a young demographic, and by two thousand and eight, Facebook 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.640 started to leave my Space behind. They were they had 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.640 more users and people were spending more time on Facebook 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.399 than on MySpace. News Corps tried to pivot. They redesigned 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:48.480 my Space a few times to try and win people 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.439 back over to the platform, but they couldn't really do 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.240 much other than, you know, slow the flow of users 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.159 from their site to the rival of Facebook. It was 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:02.760 like putting a band aid on a truly massive wound. 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.639 It just wasn't enough, and eventually news Corps sold my 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:11.359 Space to a company called Specific Media for thirty five 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:16.600 million dollars. So again, news Corps paid eight million for 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:20.040 the site and then they sold it for thirty five million. 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:22.479 I don't think I need to point out that that's 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:28.200 not a great deal. Today my Space is technically still around, 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:32.239 though it's really focused more on entertainment in general and 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.679 the music industry in particular, and it's less of a 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.440 social networking space for users like some of the other 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:41.919 sites we've talked about on here so far. The only 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:44.080 way my Space was able to stick around at all 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:46.880 was to switch its focus from being a social networking 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:52.360 platform to a different central focus, but still incorporating some 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:56.480 social elements to the experience, so it's more like it's 0:22:56.480 --> 0:23:00.760 a site about music that has some social networking features 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:05.360 along with it. Now, our next social platform that preceded 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:08.160 Facebook is orch it Now. This one only came out 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:12.000 a month before Facebook did, but technically that makes it earlier. 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:15.440 It debuted in January two four, and orch It grew 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:19.400 out of Google, where the company had this standing policy 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:24.359 that employees could devote their work week to their own 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:29.600 personal projects within Google, and one of those projects was orchit. Now. 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:33.480 There have been subsequent allegations that orch it really was 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:37.840 a replica of UH, an earlier project that the same 0:23:37.960 --> 0:23:42.040 engineer had created for a different company called Affinity Engines, 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.920 but that that's its own thing now. You might recall 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:49.119 I mentioned that Google had attempted to acquire friends Store 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.160 a couple of years earlier, but had been turned down. 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:56.360 Or Kit would become Google's first real experiment in social 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:00.960 networking platforms, and at first the service was by invitation only, 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:04.720 which helped drive interest in the platform, because it turns 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:07.880 out people like to feel that they're part of an 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:11.960 exclusive club, and Google would employ this same strategy for 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:15.320 several of its products. Further down the line from Gmail 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:18.480 to another social networking platform, will get to later in 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:23.040