WEBVTT - The History of Social Networks: Pinterest to Snapchat 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:15.200 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.040 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.880 and how the tech? Are you all right? Friends? We're 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:27.240 soldiering on in our extremely long series about the history 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.600 of online social networks. I believe this is the fifth 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:34.280 episode in that series at this point, and by my reckoning, 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.519 we have gone from the mid ninety nineties up to 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.800 or so and so far. If you've been following this series, 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:47.080 you've probably noticed there have been some waves of similarities 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.720 in networks as they have emerged. So early on, we 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:55.120 had really simple networks designed to either connect or reconnect people, 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.320 with the emphasis gradually shifting to the reconnect for most 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.480 networks as people were finding their real life friends and 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:07.480 family in this strange new world of the Internet. Following that, 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.759 we learned about some journaling sites that let users keep 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:16.560 an ongoing weblog or blog about their lives and hopes 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:20.920 and dreams and thoughts. It was part personal diary, part 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.160 showcase for your work. A lot of those sites are 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.800 still around today. Many of them have gone through massive changes, 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.440 including changes of ownership, over the years. I'm looking at you. 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:35.000 Live Journal owned by a Russian company at this point. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.640 Then we had an age where profiles became a really 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.679 big thing, you know, like Facebook and MySpace really grew 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.720 in this era, where people would create a sort of 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.520 home base online and then they would reach out from 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:52.120 that home base. There was also a surge of niche 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.080 oriented social networks around this time that appealed to specific demographics, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.680 like dog owners or people who knit. I didn't really 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.920 talk about ravelry, but that's another example of a social 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.520 network that was catering to a niche audience. Also a 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:12.440 really exclusive social network for a while, like it was 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.040 invitation only anyway. Then we get to a bunch of 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.120 services that focus on microblogging, you know, ditching the long 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:25.400 journal format for short, you know, sometimes witty or pithy messages. 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.040 This would be your Twitters, your Plurics, your Jaikus, and 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.760 to a lesser extent, your Tumblers, because Tumbler obviously is 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:38.560 more than just short blogs. And that was the next entry, 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:43.840 really and now we're coming up to the latest in 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.480 this series. We're up to about twenty ten, and we 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:52.280 get to Pinterest, the picture perfect social network, at least 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.359 on the surface. But like many of the companies we've 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.880 already talked about in this series, Pinterest has a dark 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.960 side as l and we'll get to that. But first, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.600 where did Pinterist come from? Well, it all began with 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.440 Ben Silberman. He had worked for Google before he set 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.480 off to go into business for himself, and first he 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.720 attempted to create an e commerce app for the iPhone 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.520 that he called Tote t O t E. But apparently 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.040 users found the design of Tote too complicated. And I 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.240 can believe that it sounds like something that can happen 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:30.880 when you consider that Silberman came from Google, because we 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:35.600 all know Google's projects are driven by engineers, and sometimes 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.280 that shows. Not to say that the products are bad, 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.280 but they work the way an engineer would put it together, 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.320 and for people who aren't engineers, it can sometimes come 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:51.120 across as needlessly complicated. Anyway, Tote fumbled the bag, as 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:55.080 it were, and Silverman teamed up with Evan Sharp and 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.640 Paul Sciarra, who came out of Facebook and Radius Ventures 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.800 l C. And together these three brainstormed and idea that 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:09.480 would be around an image based social network like photograph based, 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.080 not necessarily images that you took yourself. It could be, 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.560 but didn't have to be, And it would be almost 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.000 like a combination of scrap booking and social networks, where 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:24.479 you could create image boards around themes. Maybe you create 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:29.240 a board around the theme of Edwardian costuming. I can't 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.120 tell you any of those I've visited, and I'm not 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.760 being facetious. Maybe you create a different board for things 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.680 like scenic overlook looks, places that just have a gorgeous view. 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.240 Maybe you create a board that has interesting jewelry on 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.000 it from various creators, or really anything else, if you 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.080 if you like. So they worked on their idea throughout 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.880 two thousand nine, and in March they launched the site 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:57.200 with a closed beta, so just a small group of 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.839 users who are testing and out making sure that everything 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.280 marked the way it was intended. They opened this up 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.920 slightly and then people in the beta program were allowed 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.640 to send invites to others, but it was still otherwise 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.040 a closed beta. And like we've seen with other entries 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:17.560 in this series, that kind of exclusivity and controlled entry 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.360 drove up interest. Like I said in previous episodes, everybody 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.840 wants to get into the club that barely lets anyone 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.120 in because you want to be one of the cool people. 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.159 We'll hear that again before we're through with this series, 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.359 because once upon a time I got to be a 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:40.839 cool person. It um. It didn't stick, obviously, but we're 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:45.080 still talking interest here. The team held back on opening 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.159 up the floodgates, and growth was steady, but you know, 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.520 fairly modest. You know, in three months they had three 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.279 thousand users, and in nine months it was up to 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:58.000 ten thousand, and by a year later, this little niche 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.000 site was the talk of the social network industry, and 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:03.919 Time magazine declared it one of the best sites in 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:09.240 the world at that point. So the growth and users exploded, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:14.560 and over the years they grew tremendously. These days, the 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.600 number of users are it's somewhere in the four hundred 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.680 thirty million neighborhood, which is not bad. You know, it's 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.760 not Facebook by a long shot, but four thirty million 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.200 is a lot of people. From early on, Pinterest became 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.000 a site that attracted brands to it because companies could 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.840 create Pinterest accounts and boards and use these boards to 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.640 showcase products in attractive ways. So it was kind of 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.839 like getting access to a magazine and being able to 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.280 turn every single page of that magazine into an ad. 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:51.200 Companies loved this and they worked. Pinterest also became a 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.560 social network that had far more women as members than men, 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:58.200 which made it a real outlier. In fact, estimates say 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.159 that women make up more than seventy percent of the 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.560 user base on Pinterest, and it kind of tried to 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.880 groom and cultivate a reputation for being a woman friendly 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.840 and safe space. More on that in a moment too, now. 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.440 An early obstacle for Pinterest came when folks actually did 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.520 something no one ever does, and they read the terms 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:25.920 of service because until the wording said that Pinterest would 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.480 own all images uploaded to the website. Yeah, you might 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.040 have taken the photo. If you upload it to Pinterest, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.680 Pinterest claims ownership of the image, not you, and in 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.480 Pinterest committed to never selling those images. So you know, 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:43.600 it was one of those complicated things. You think, well, 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.360 I took the photo, I should have the copyright to 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.680 that photo. But Pinterest was saying, we published the photos, 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:52.680 so now we have the copyright and you agreed to 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.080 it in the terms of service. So that that was 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.200 a bit of a sticking point early in pinterest history. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.000 In twenty nineteen, skipping away ahead because I mean the 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.160 company grows, the company gets lots more users, people begin 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.040 to find really creative ways to use it. But there's 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.320 no real point in in diving into all that because 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.160 I've pretty much summed up what I would say. But 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.800 in twenty nineteen, the team decided to hold an initial 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.520 public offering. So when you go from being a privately 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.560 held company to a publicly traded company, and it was 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.440 bringing in a lot of revenue, but it had not 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:34.240 yet become profitable. So again pinterest launched in in twenty nineteen, 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.040 it's going to become a publicly traded company. But throughout 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.080 its history, at this point, it had not once turned 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.199 a profit. It was operating at a loss. So it's 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.280 bringing in lots and lots of money, but it cost 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:52.480 more just to keep in business. So this is not 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.880 a huge surprise. It's not like it's an outlier for pinterest. 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.120 We have seen lots of social networks follow this route 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.199 because the first phase of a social network typically is 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.760 all about building value by attracting a large user base. 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.920 You know, you want to get as many people on 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.040 your service as possible and grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.559 That is your goal. Then once you have a pretty 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:18.640 large user base, you try to figure out how to 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.360 make money off of them or with them, because typically 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:28.200 your user base becomes your product and advertisers become your customers. Now, 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:34.640 Pinterest would not host its first profit until twenty twenty one, 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.480 which is last year when I'm recording this. Anyway, in 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.040 twenty nineteen, the company went public. Now, at its height, 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.360 the stock was valued at eighty five dollars per share. However, 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.679 as of this recording, it's around twenty three dollars per share, 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.480 which is a fairly drastic drop off. But we've got 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.840 a bigger one later in this episode. Earlier this year, 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:03.480 back in June two tho Ben Silberman stepped down as CEO. 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.960 He had been in that position since and he stepped down. 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.040 He is now the chairman of the board and a 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.360 guy named Bill Ready has taken the helm of pinterest, 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.320 And I guess you could say that Bill was prepared 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:23.040 to do the job anyway. Ready comes from companies like 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:27.319 PayPal and Google and has a long history and things 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:33.920 like monetization. Silberman likely stepped down in part due to 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.000 an issue with the company's stock price falling even as 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.040 it was posting its first profits in company history. But 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.960 then there's also this dark stuff that we need to 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.640 talk about that came to light over the past couple 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:50.840 of years. So in so two former pinterest employees came forward, 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:57.160 two women who accused Pinterest of being a culture where 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:01.440 things like racist and sexist behave ivir were running rampant 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:06.480 within the company, and that there were issues with pay inequality, 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:10.040 and that the company was known to take retaliatory actions 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.000 against employees who spoke out about this kind of stuff. 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:19.600 Then Francis Bower Brower, an executive with Pinterest, sued the 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:24.280 company on the grounds of gender discrimination and retaliation. Shareholders 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:28.320 began to sue the company as well. Because of these 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:32.920 kind of issues, employees staged a digital walkout of pinterest. 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:37.679 So my guess is like these actions collectively also contributed 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:42.240 to Silberman's decision to step down. Now, Pinterest would settle 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.280 Brower's lawsuit for twenty million dollars and had an additional 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.000 two and a half million dollars earmarked for charities that 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.800 help you know, women and people of color within the 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:56.040 tech sector. Meanwhile, one of the women who stepped forward 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.199 in twenty would end up working with California lawmakers to 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.760 draft legislation that protects employees who speak out against their employers. 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.960 So it's legislation that really comes down hard on things 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:11.800 like retaliation. Then we have the matter of Christine Martinez. 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.560 She claims she is the unacknowledged co founder of pinterest, 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.760 that she worked as an unpaid consultant when Silverman and 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.959 Skiera and Sharp were brainstorming on how pinterest would work. 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.559 She filed a lawsuit that specifically named Silverman and Skiara, 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.880 claiming that they they had listened to her advice. She 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:37.280 had served as a mentor and the UH council for 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.920 them when it came to designing a product that was 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.880 really targeting women users. So she says, like they didn't 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.440 know anything about appealing to women, so they turned to 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.960 me and I gave them guidance. She claims to have 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.120 been the person responsible for deciding that users would organize 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:56.080 images on boards, and that she played a part in 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.240 creating the terminology of connecting an image to a ward 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.440 and calling it a an action of pen it like 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.120 you pen it to your your bulletin board. Now, Unfortunately 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:11.320 for Ms Martinez, she never had any sort of written 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.000 contract with the creators. It's not like she was an 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:19.360 official contractor or or uh consultant or anything like that. 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.080 It was all more of a verbal agreement. She says. 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.960 There was an understanding she would be compensated should the 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.640 company ever become a success, and when pinterest went public 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.800 in twenty nineteen and there was no check in the mail, 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.360 she says she realized that she was not going to 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.120 be compensated and that the co founders, she says, were 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.679 engaged in idea theft. Thus she files a lawsuit against 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.040 the company. Now, the lack of documentation makes it seemed 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.480 to me like miss Martinez has a pretty tough case 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.600 to make, even assuming everything she says is accurate. For 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.440 the record, I have no reason to doubt her. It's 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.080 just that there seems to be little in the way 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.440 of corroborating evidence at this stage. But again I have 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:04.840 not involved in the trial. There could be tons of 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.240 stuff and I'm just not aware of it. So maybe 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.160 that's the case. But at any rate, as of this recording, 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:15.920 that lawsuit is moving forward. So Martinez originally filed this 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.440 lawsuit back in September one, and then pinterest moved to 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.960 dismiss the case in December one, and then June of 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:28.120 this year, by being a judge ruled that the case 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.000 can move forward. Justice is ever so swift here in 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.360 the United States. Anyway. We'll have to see where this 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.400 goes and whether Pinterest will defend itself or settle out 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:42.240 of court. Okay, that's just one more in our line 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.400 of social networks. We've got lots more to come, but 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:56.880 first let's take a quick break. We're back. So our 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.200 next social network also relates to images, but this time 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:06.120 we're talking about Instagram. So we've already mentioned Instagram because 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.960 you know, we covered Facebook and Facebook now known as Meta, 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:15.200 acquired Instagram in for at the time a staggering one 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:20.280 billion dollars that would positively be overshadowed by Facebook's subsequent 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.280 acquisition of WhatsApp for sixteen billion dollars two years later. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.440 So we're just gonna talk briefly about Instagram's early years 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.440 and how things changed post acquisition, because a lot of 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.440 the stuff we talked about kind of feeds right into 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.280 the Facebook entrigue that we already did earlier in this series. 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:44.160 So before Instagram, there was an app called Bourbon, a 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:48.400 developer named Kevin's Systrom created Bourbon, which was not a 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.400 type of whiskey, but rather an app that let you 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.280 check into new places and gave your friends the chance 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.160 to see where you were from place to place. It 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.680 was spelled bu, r, b, N, and uh. In many ways, 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.760 this was similar to four square, the original version of 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.760 four square, which had launched in two thousand nine. So 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.960 we did get a little brief period of location based 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:17.200 check in services that relates to social networks. Some of 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.000 them would interact with social networks so that you can 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.360 post your check ins to say, your Facebook account, that 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.480 kind of stuff, and some of these would pivot to 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:30.000 do other things. Four Square did this. Four Square pivoted 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:34.840 away from the check in business, mostly because there were 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.280 a lot of people who had safety and privacy concerns 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.480 about these, and it became harder and harder to monetize 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:46.920 those without falling into some potential traps when it comes 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.720 to regulators, because I mean, obviously, anytime you're monetizing a 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.520 person's location, that gets into some sticky situations. So a 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.000 lot of those would end up moving away from the 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:02.280 location based check in stuff. Anyway, System got some financial 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.359 backing for Bourbon, and he brought on Mike Krieger to 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.000 help build out the app, but over time they both 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.280 realized that Bourbon was too similar to four Square and 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.880 that their test users were actually sharing photos like crazy 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:19.440 more than they were using the app to check into 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.080 physical locations. So they decided they would switch rails and 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.760 instead they would develop the app as a photo sharing 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.920 social network. But they wanted to change the name as well, 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.200 and they came up with the name Instagram because it's 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.399 a play on the phrase instant camera and on the 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:40.200 word telegram, which I'm guessing all of y'all already knew, 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.680 but I thought I would just throw it in there for, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.920 you know, the sake of being complete now as Instagram. 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:51.520 The app launched in October, initially just for iOS. Within 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.320 three months, the app had more than a million users, 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.000 so it was off to the races. A month and 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:01.040 a half after that, they were up to two million users. 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:06.399 The trajectory of growth outpaced earlier social networks like Facebook 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.359 and Twitter. They were just on a rocket ship, really, 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.200 and I'm guessing that's why Facebook would ultimately come forward 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.479 with an offer to buy out Instagram, because, as anyone 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:21.040 who has paid any attention to Facebook, slash Meta knows 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.200 the company typically tries to do two things. If any 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:29.960 other service starts to gain some traction against Facebook's other products, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:32.760 first thing they will try to do is buy it, 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.200 and if that fails, they will try to copy it 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:40.640 in an effort to keep people on Meta slash Facebook platforms, 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.639 because we all know if you're spending time on someone 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:48.600 else's service, well, then you're spending less time on Meta's services, 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.959 and that's bad for Meta's bottom line. But we're not 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.560 quite up to the acquisition just yet. The early Instagram 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:00.240 allowed users to post images, to leave comments on other 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.040 people's images, and to follow other users, and that was 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.359 about it. A little less than a year after launch, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.080 Instagram would introduce options that would really change things up 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:15.080 make things more attractive for Instagram. They included some digital 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:19.280 filters and some image editing features. At the same time, 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.560 iPhones cameras were improving, so it was kind of a 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.840 perfect convergence of the hardware improving and the software giving 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.520 more options that attracted new users. And now users could 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.720 tweak their photos, even adding camera effects before sharing them 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:40.040 with their followers, and it really made Instagram pop in popularity. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.840 In two thousand twelve, Android users would finally get a 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.560 chance to use Instagram as there was now an Android 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.240 version of the app, And not too long after the 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:53.440 android version came out, Facebook announced its intent to acquire Instagram. Now, 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.240 when Facebook bought Instagram for a billion bucks, the startup 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.760 app company was really small, like there was a Baker's 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.200 dozen worth of employees. And for those of you who 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.080 aren't familiar with one of Baker's dozen, is that means thirteen. 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.639 So imagine being one of thirteen people when the company 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.560 you work for has been bought by by another company 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.200 for a billion dollars. That had to be a heck 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.840 of a day. So Facebook buys Instagram probably because of 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.520 a combination of factors like a desire to scoop up 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.080 competition because they didn't want the fact that, you know, 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:32.440 Instagram was attracting younger users. Facebook was kind of already 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:36.399 having an issue in attracting young users like the users 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.760 they had they had in droves, but it's it was 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.200 getting harder and harder to convince younger people to come 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:46.080 into the service, whereas Instagram that was really attractive to 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.399 a lot of young people. So one thing Facebook was 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.560 doing was buying audience, but another reason was that they 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.320 did not want some company like Google or Twitter to 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.880 get hold of Instagram and potentially get a leg up 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.879 on Facebook. Now. At the time, the folks that Instagram 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.359 were assured that they would remain in charge and they 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.680 wouldn't really have to worry about Facebook interfering with Instagram's 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.359 operations too much. But as time would go on, the 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:17.000 team of Instagram would see Facebook both direct Instagram to 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:21.280 incorporate specific features as well as it would lift some 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:26.880 of Instagram's functionality for other Facebook products and thus kind 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.760 of make Instagram less special as a result. So Kevin's 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.320 Systrom and Mike Kreeger both chose to leave Instagram in 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.640 two thousand eighteen, which was coming in a tough time 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.920 for Facebook, though you could argue not nearly as tough 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.800 as this past year has been in many ways. So 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:47.000 by two thousand eighteen, Facebook was already known as essentially 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:51.040 celebrating the death of privacy, which it was getting flak four, 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:53.040 but the company was also in the spotlight due to 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:58.040 issues like Cambridge Analytica for an Intelligent scandals, concerns about 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.800 misinformation campaigns, and more. Obviously, a lot of that has 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.439 not changed in years since. In fact, some of it 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:08.720 has just expanded to other types of misinformation, like when 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:13.640 the pandemic broke out and COVID misinformation ran rampant on Facebook. Anyway, 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:16.959 the initial word was that system and Krieger wanted to 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.240 set out to make something new. And it was about 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.320 a year after that, in two thousand nineteen, when publications 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.199 like Wired and The Verge started to publish articles that 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:30.040 gave more details into what may have driven the co 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.560 founders to leave the company they created, and there were 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.400 a lot of them. For one thing, apparently Instagram's popularity 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:42.119 was a matter of resentment among certain Facebook staff because 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.240 they were looking at Instagram as pulling traffic away from 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:49.400 Facebook proper, and so it became kind of a territorial thing. Now, 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:51.720 it is never good when you have this kind of 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.080 animosity between different departments within the same company. I know 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:58.119 there's some companies that try to foster a sense of 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:03.240 competitiveness against each other in these departments. I personally find 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:07.240 that to be uh counterproductive for the overall health of 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:09.199 the company. But what do I know. I'm not a 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:13.600 billionaire anyway, making matters worse, Zuckerberg would say in an 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:16.720 earnings call that Instagram's success was largely due to the 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.480 support it was getting from Facebook. But as we've already 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:23.639 heard in this episode, Instagram was already on an adoption 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.959 trajectory that was way more aggressive than Facebook's own history. 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:32.920 So it was tough because for on one hand, Instagram 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:35.760 staff were being hated on but because of their success, 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:40.040 and on the other hand, they their success was being 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.679 claimed by the same department that hated them for being successful. 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:47.199 So it was kind of a double whammy in that sense. 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:51.199 But another issue was that there was increased interference and 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:55.399 restrictions coming from Mark Zuckerberg himself. In particular, there was 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:58.679 a time when Kevin Sistram was giving interviews to the press, 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:03.399 and Zuckerberg sequently passed an edict company wide saying no 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:05.320 one would be allowed to talk to the press unless 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:09.320 they first got permission from either Zuckerberg or from Cheryl Sandberg. 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:12.000 And I'm sure that rubbed system the wrong way because 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:15.480 it sends the message that he's not trustworthy, right, he 0:24:15.520 --> 0:24:19.600 can't represent the company well without permission. He's not towing 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:22.560 the line. And y'all, I have been on that kind 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:25.240 of situation in the past, not at iHeart, but in 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:27.359 the past, I've been in that same situation, and I 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:30.320 can definitely tell you it feels like an insult. Anyway, 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:34.159 Like I mentioned before, Facebook was making demands on Instagram 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.520 and lifting features for the core Facebook app, and all 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:39.720 of that was just not what Systram and Krieger wanted, 0:24:39.800 --> 0:24:43.359 and so they split. Anyway, That's about all I have 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:46.000 to say about Instagram as we did, as as I said, 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:49.080 cover some of this stuff already in the Facebook entry. Obviously, 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:53.560 we've seen Instagram change a great deal over time. There's 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:57.360 been a greater emphasis on algorithms served content, so you're 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:00.960 far less likely to see stuff that from your friends 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:03.560 and family that you follow, and more likely to see 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:07.399 stuff that Instagram thinks you want to see. So for 0:25:07.480 --> 0:25:10.880 some people that might be great because you're discovering stuff 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:13.000