WEBVTT - Chaos in the Microblogging Space 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.440 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:17.080 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.400 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:24.639 are you? So it is a wild time on the 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.479 social network platform seen these days. If you're not active 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.800 on social networks, I think you should count yourself fortunate, 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:37.040 because frankly, I find it exhausting to be covering this 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.840 and to be using any of these social platforms right now. Personally, 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.720 I had scaled way back on my social network presence 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.080 until fairly recently I kind of dipped my toe back 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.960 in and then everything went banana. And that's why it 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.360 has convinced me that maybe I should have just, you know, 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.640 kept kind of at a distance. But anyway, today I 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.000 thought I would give an overview about what's going on 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:05.679 with the microblogging landscape, which for the longest time was 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:10.080 dominated by Twitter, and then the various attempts of different 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.800 social networks to compete with Twitter. So, first of let's 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.760 just talk about Twitter. And I've done episodes about the 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.800 company's history before, so instead of going through an exhaustive history, 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.600 we're going to do a recap. So Once upon a 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.800 time there was a company that was trying to launch 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:31.720 a podcasting service, and this was called Odio. But then 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:37.800 Apple's cannonball into podcasting would drink Odeo's milkshake to mix 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.120 metaphors and references. A few folks at Odeo were also 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.920 working on kind of a spinoff project, and it was 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.039 a tool that would let one person post a text 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.600 message to a whole audience of people all at the 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.000 same time. And the idea was that through this service, 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.440 people could connect with one another or follow other people, 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.520 and then you could blast out quick messages. Maybe you 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:02.680 would do something like I'm going to go see the 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.760 Struts at Variety Playhouse. Who else is going now? The 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:10.560 service originally depended upon SMS texting technology that had a 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:12.760 real limit to the number of characters you could send 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.200 in a message. So this new service, which would eventually 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.800 be called Twitter, originally had a cap of one hundred 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:24.000 and forty characters per message. It reserved some characters so 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.520 that you could have a username for example, but one 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:28.800 hundred and forty characters was as long as you could post. 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.200 In two thousand and seven, Twitter would get a big boost, 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:34.919 so they launch in like the summer of two thousand 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:36.560 and six. But in two thousand and seven, that's where 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.919 it landed on people's radars because they went to south 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.280 By Southwest, the big conference that's a music conference, a 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:49.760 movie conference, and you know interactive. So Twitter had this 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:53.600 bright idea. The people there had this great idea really 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.640 to set up television screens that would display posted Twitter 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.240 messages to people who were just at the conference, so 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.600 they could actually see these messages pop up. And y'all, 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:06.680 folks love to see their stuff go up on a 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.040 big screen. So suddenly you had a ton of people 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.840 signing up for Twitter and tweeting all over the place 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:13.600 and keeping an eye out to see if maybe they 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.480 would pop up on screen. So the strategy drove enrollment 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.959 and buzz. And because you had so many influential people 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.640 at stuff By Southwest, including a lot of you know, 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:30.680 tech journals and stuff, it really made Twitter's relevance climb significantly. Now, 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.200 there were a couple of big draws to Twitter. Over 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:37.160 the years, you could gather a fairly large following, and 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.480 so celebrities and brands found Twitter useful. Some famous folks 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.880 used it to promote their work or sometimes they were 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.120 doing it so that they could land sponsorships and that 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.360 kind of thing. Others used it just to kind of 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.560 goof around or to tackle causes that they believed in. 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.360 Some did a combination of these things. It wasn't like 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.760 you could do just one or the other. And the 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.040 presence of these famous people on Twitter meant that it 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.640 was possible that you could have an interaction with a 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.280 famous person. That got a lot of regular old Twitter 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.640 users like me really excited. I mean, I still think 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.520 about the time when Neil Gaman retweeted one of my posts. 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.560 It got me more visibility than anything else I'd ever 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:22.840 done anyway. Another big draw was that news organizations and 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.719 the folks staffing those organizations were flocking to Twitter. The 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.919 platform became a way for journalists to rapidly disseminate big stories, 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.440 and Twitter became associated with breaking news. Folks in the 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.039 news business also built out their networks with each other. 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.520 Peer's got a chance to communicate directly with their colleagues 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.000 working for other publications, and Twitter also would serve as 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.560 a way to gather leads to unfolding stories. You know, 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.800 journalists would open up their dms and that way, if 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.400 you happened to know of this firecracker of a story 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.400 that wasn't in the public yet, you could send it 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.560 to one of these journalists. So it was a really 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:03.120 useful tool for writers and journalists and reporters and that school. 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.040 Now other important uses of Twitter emerged as well. Agencies 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.760 in charge of sending out emergency messages would use Twitter 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.960 to help spread word about everything from traffic conditions to wildfires. 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.000 Anyone who was on Twitter for any length of time 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.640 also knows that Twitter would become something of an earthquake tracker, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.719 because you would see messages pop up that would say 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.719 something like quake, and there'd be a ripple effect as 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.599 the quake moved outward from its source, and you would 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.159 actually be able to track that on Twitter in real time. 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:34.920 If you were following people who were say in California, 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.520 for example, you'd see it all the time. Twitter would 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.120 also become a tool for activists and protesters around the world, 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.400 which also meant that more authoritarian governments around the world 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.159 started to try and block Twitter within their borders. In 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.280 the spring of twenty twenty two, rumor first spread about 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.960 Elon Musk setting his sights on buying Twitter, and that 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.320 whole saga was filled with drama and theatrics, mostly coming 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.560 from Elie Musk himself. There were times when he antagonistically 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.400 pursued the purchase of Twitter, at other times when he 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.800 tried to back out of it, which led to Twitter 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.280 suing Elon Musk for trying to get out of a 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:17.120 deal that was pretty clear on the no backseis clause. Ultimately, 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:21.479 Musk did buy Twitter, and it happened just a short 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.599 time before the matter was supposed to be decided in court. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.760 No big surprise there. He took possession of Twitter in 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:32.159 early October twenty twenty two. Then Musk began to gut 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.880 Twitter of employees, so as a company that once had 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.880 around eight thousand staff and it ended up being closer 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:43.839 to fifteen hundred. Entire departments were eliminated, and we started 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.080 seeing lots of predictions about how Twitter's days were numbered 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.680 unless things would change dramatically. Former Twitter developers warned that 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.280 there weren't enough people at the company to continue developing 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.479 the platform while also making sure that everything else just 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.880 kept on running in the process, and the general consensus 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.679 was that Twitter was on borrowed time barring a massive change, 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.320 and by borrowed time. I mean that there would come 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.960 a point where Twitter would no longer reliably be active, 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.600 and that it would have lots of interruptions in service now. 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:22.000 During the same time, Musk's behavior encouraged certain populations on 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.960 Twitter and antagonized others. He claimed to be a proponent 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.760 of free speech, but it quickly became clear that what 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.160 he really meant was he favored his own speech being free. 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.280 There were numerous cases in which people said things Musk 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.880 didn't like and found themselves banned or their messages censored. 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:44.960 Today Twitter is a weird and chaotic mess The company 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.480 has eased off on bands and restrictions that previously cracked 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.560 down on stuff like hate speech and misinformation, so a 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.480 lot of those parties are back at Twitter now. Musk 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.200 himself has tweeted out messages that some have said are 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:03.400 anti Semitic. I should add that others debate whether or 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.360 not the messages are actually anti Semitics, but that's in 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:09.560 the conversation now. A lot of the reports about hate 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:12.960 speech on Twitter end up being anecdotal, and that's not 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.720 really evidence. You can't really rely on that, you know, 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.360 just because one person may have seen something truly awful 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.160 on Twitter doesn't mean that that's, you know, indicative of 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:29.320 a bigger problem. However, some agencies have conducted various analyzes 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:31.760 and surveys to kind of get a better handle on this. 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:36.120 The Institute of Strategic Dialogue conducted such a survey and 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.120 found or a study rather and found a quantifiable increase 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.240 in the amount of hate speech, specifically anti Semitic hate 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.280 speech on Twitter. Other studies have shown that the company 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.960 has been slow to respond to this problem. The people 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.280 who used to be in charge of that kind of 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:56.120 content moderation stuff no longer with the company. Now coupled 0:08:56.120 --> 0:09:00.520 with this is something that Twitter really can't ignore. They 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.520 might ignore the rise of hate speech, or it may 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.240 not even be ignoring. It may just be that they 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.520 literally don't have the manpower to do enough about it. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.280 But one thing they can ignore is how advertisers are 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.520 viewing Twitter these days. According to The New York Times, 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:19.240 ad dollars make up ninety percent of Twitter's overall revenue, 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.160 so ninety percent of the money coming into Twitter depends 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:28.360 upon advertising. Twitter literally cannot afford to lose advertisers, but 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:32.559 the company has seen a sharp decline in advertising revenue 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:36.800 over the last several months since Musk took control again. 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.040 According to The New York Times, and this was in 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:43.160 an article that posted back in June of twenty twenty three, 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:48.480 revenues were down fifty nine percent year over year of 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.920 the April to May period, so one month period, So 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.160 in twenty twenty three April to May, Twitter made fifty 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.600 nine percent less revenue than it had April to May 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.360 in twenty On top of that, the Times reported that 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.560 Twitter was falling well short of its sales projections, up 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:11.559 to thirty percent short in some cases. Meanwhile, shareholders of 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:16.280 a different Musk owned company, Tesla, were or i should 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:20.160 say Musk operated company, because while he is a majority 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.400 owner of Tesla, he's not the only one. But shareholders 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:25.640 were concerned that Elon was spending a bit too much 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.360 time with his new company of Twitter, and not enough 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.439 tending to matters of concern back at Tesla. So Musk 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:37.280 faced pressure from Tesla's shareholders to name a new Twitter CEO, 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.079 and at the same time, he recognized that advertisers were 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:43.960 not eager to sign on to the new face of Twitter, 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.640 so he needed to do something, and he named Linda Yakerino, 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:53.200 a former executive with NBC Universal, as Twitter's new CEO. Now, 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:57.160 she has led sales teams at big companies, and she's 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.400 known for her relationships with advertisers, So this move made 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.480 a lot of sense. A lot of people said, Okay, 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:04.960 maybe we're going to see some stuff turn around here, 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.440 because she clearly is going to mend fences between Twitter 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:12.400 and advertisers. But Musk didn't actually walk away from Twitter. 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.400 He's still very much a presence there, and based on 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.040 recent moves, it's very hard to believe he's not, at 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.480 least on some level, calling most of the shots. If 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.800 he's not, then Yakarino really needs to rein him in 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.800 because he's been doing more harm to the company recently. 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.880 And then, on top of all of this other mess 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:37.320 we've been talking about, we've got Twitter the company's financial woes. 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.079 That drop in revenue has meant that Twitter has been 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.440 in a real tough place financially, and a lot of 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.960 reporting has been about how Twitter has failed to pay 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:50.959 its bills, like all sorts of bills, bills ranging from 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.960 promised payouts to current and former employees who were guaranteed 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.679 a bonus payout that was at fifty percent of goal 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.120 and then never got them. They have now created a 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:07.839 class action lawsuit against Twitter to seek those payments. Then 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.679 you have the former CEO and leaders of Twitter who 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.960 are suing the company because they say they are owed 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:19.120 fees to cover legal expenses that they incurred as a 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.000 result of this whole process, and that Twitter owes them 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.280 that money and hasn't paid them. Then you also have 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.640 the owners of cloud services who have said that Twitter 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.160 has failed to pay its bills for the hosting services 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:37.600 these cloud companies give Twitter, not give sell to Twitter. 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.240 And then you have landlords who are saying that Twitter 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:45.400 has failed to pay rent on office spaces in various cities. 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.719 And considering Elon Musk's push to have folks come back 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.439 to the office, it does seem odd that he and 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.120 wouldn't make sure that rent was paid up so that 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.360 there would be an office to come into in the 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:59.960 first place. The negligence has led to one landlord to 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.439 actually evict Twitter from its office space. This would be 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:07.960 in an office space in Boulder, Colorado. So there had 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.719 been at one time around three hundred Twitter employees who 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.720 worked out of that office, although around a third of 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:19.240 them were either fired or left when Elon Musk took 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:23.840 over Twitter. So I guess that means around two hundred 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.880 of them don't have an office to go to considering 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:31.559 this eviction. Other landlords have filed lawsuits against Twitter, also 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.920 seeking out past rent because they say they haven't received 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.880 payment from the company recently. Then there's this music trade 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.880 group that has sued Twitter over copyright infringement issues. They're 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.400 looking for like more than a quarter of a billion 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.120 dollars in damages. The list of aggrieved people and entities 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.920 seeking payment from Twitter is a long and exhaustive one. 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.640 All this and more prompted a lot of folks to 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.480 ask the question, is there anywhere else to go? Is 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.880 there any alternative to Twitter? And I would say the 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:08.240 answer to that is yeah, but you're probably not gonna 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.439 like it. I'll explain more, but before we dive into 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.800 the next chapter of the micro blogging drama Saga, let's 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:29.360 take a break to thank our sponsors. We're back, and 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.160 before I dive into this next section two, deeply, I 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.640 do want to say there have been lots of alternatives 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.760 to Twitter over the years. We are talking about a 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:44.000 couple of recent examples in today's episode, but some of 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.000 them have been around for ages. In fact, some of 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.080 them date all the way back to when Twitter itself 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.840 was first coalescing as part of odio. For example, there 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:56.960 was jai Ku Jaiku that launched a full month before 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:02.080 Twitter did. A pair of finish developed created Jaiku, and 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.920 Google purchased Jaiku in the fall of two thousand and seven, 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.400 and well, you can probably guess Jaiku's fate from there. 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:14.800 Like so many other Google projects and acquisitions, it languished 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.800 without real direction or support for a while until Google 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:23.320 ultimately shut it down. That has happened way too frequently. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.800 In two thousand and eight, a service called Plerk debuted. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.160 Also shared some similarities with Twitter, but with a different 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.880 user interface and layout an approach to microblogging. Clerk kept 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.920 a fairly low profile. It's still around today, but it 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.640 never really got the traction of Twitter. And that's just 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.840 two examples. There are many more, including a couple that 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.120 I will talk about later in this episode that debuted 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.480 a few years ago but really didn't get much attention 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.760 until late last year after Musk purchased Twitter. The one 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.080 that has the most buzz right now is clear. It 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.160 is from a goliath of a company, and I'm talking 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.440 about Meta, formerly known as Facebook and the service that 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.840 some have called the Twitter killer that has the actual 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.040 name of Threads. And while most of us became aware 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:19.360 of Threads just last week when Meta surprisingly launched the 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.800 service a little early, this wasn't the first Meta product 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.360 to actually be called Threads. Meta had previously pushed out 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:31.480 Threads in twenty nineteen, but at that time, Meta, which 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.080 at that point was still just Facebook, wasn't really taking 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.160 aim at Twitter. Now they had a different target and 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.360 rival in mind. It was Snapchat. So the original Threads, 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.520 which like the current version was also tied to Instagram, 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.760 was an app that combined photo and video sharing capabilities 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:55.600 with quick messaging. Just as Instagram's Reels product was trying 0:16:55.600 --> 0:17:00.480 to undermine TikTok, the Threads app, the original thread app 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.240 was intended to take a big old bite out a Snapchat. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.639 And why Well, the big reason is that Meta slash 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.800 Facebook has a pretty big challenge facing it, which is 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.320 attracting new, younger users to its various platforms, or at 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:18.200 least there's a perception problem there. So the perception is that, 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:22.320 for example, Facebook is for old people. It's where your 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:26.320 parents are. That's the narrative anyway, though the company Oberlough 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.399 cites a study that suggests the largest age demographic on 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.919 Facebook right now is the twenty five to thirty four crowd, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:37.160 followed closely by the eighteen to twenty four demographic. Now, 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.440 since I'm closer to fifty than i am to forty five, 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:43.800 those sound young to me. But I guess if you're 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.399 looking long term and you want to make sure your 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.920 company can continue to grow, which is a really big 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.639 challenge when you hit the size of a company like Meta, 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.159 then worrying about younger folks is a big deal. You 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.440 want to make sure you have an avenue to bring 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:05.480 new users into your ecosystem. Meanwhile, apps like Snapchat and 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.760 to a greater extent, TikTok have had lots of engagement 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.360 among young people, and so Meta, doing what Meta does, 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.760 look to find ways to either acquire competitors, or, if 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.439 that doesn't work, to replicate what they do in the 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:20.640 hopes that this would move more young folks to their 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.920 platforms and be able to kind of, you know, get 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.560 the other competitors to go out of business just by 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.200 virtue of the fact that you're already huge anyway, Meta 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.200 pushed threads this other version of threads, the Snapchat version 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.080 of threads, for a while, but not that many people 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.640 actually jumped on board, And in twenty twenty one, Meta 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:45.919 pulled the thread on threads and the whole thing unraveled. 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.879 Meta kept trying to find ways to mimic its competitors 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.960 in the meantime. Then we get to Musk acquiring Twitter 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.280 in late twenty twenty two and how the shift on 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:59.840 the platform upset a lot of users as well as advertisers. Plus, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.720 Twitter was shedding talent in waves of layoffs, and this 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.800 situation spelled out an opportunity to Meta. There was a 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.760 clear space for the services that Twitter provided. People recognized 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:16.040 that what Twitter did was at least on some level valuable, 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.119 which meant there was potential money to be made with 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.359 advertisers who were concerned about associating their brand with Twitter 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.720 itself because it was such a volatile platform. So a 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:30.440 Twitter rival could help bring more folks into the meta 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:37.000 landscape and also bring potentially more advertising money into the company. 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:41.320 And as a bonus, it would allow one billionaire in 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.480 the form of Mark Zuckerberg to splatter mud on another 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.639 that of Elon Musk. By late twenty twenty two, Meta 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.280 started work on this project, which was top secret at 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.800 the time. Early rumors outside the company started to really 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.960 get buzzing in the spring of twenty twenty three. Zuckerberg 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.560 also played a on the negative reputation of Musk's Twitter, 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.520 saying that there needed to be an alternative that was 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:10.240 less hateful and chaotic and mercurial. I think he at 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:15.080 one point used the phrase a sane platform. He also 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.520 indicated that one thing he thought Twitter always needed was 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.639 a billion users, which seemed to be shot spired at 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:27.080 the fact that Meta has so many active users across 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.320 its platforms. So earlier this year, word got out that 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:32.639 Meta was in fact working on its own take on 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.639 Twitter's approach, and Elon Musk responded to the news in 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:40.640 his mature way by challenging Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match. Zuckerberg, 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:42.920 who famously has been spending a lot of time working 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.320 out and training in martial arts, eagerly accepted the challenge. 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.320 At one point, Elon Musk's mom stepped in to say 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.400 the whole fight had been called off, But even since 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.280 then there have been more rumblings as Musk has grown 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.320 increasingly upset about Meta's launch of Threads version two point zero. 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.560 So in the first week of July this year, which 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:06.720 is last week as a record, this Meta launched Threads, 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:11.240 and like the previous incarnation, it's tied to Instagram, so 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:14.359 users need to have an Instagram account in order to 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.600 create a Threads account, and as of the recording of 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.359 this podcast, that connection between the two is such that 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:24.879 if you wanted to subsequently delete your Threads account, you 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.199 would first have to also nuke your Instagram account, so 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:32.080 you know you can't jump on threads, decide it's not 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:33.520 for you, and then say I want to wipe all 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:36.040 that off. I don't want it sitting there without also 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.439 killing off your Instagram account, and if you're a big Instagram user, 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.679 that's a non starter. I think. Now one of my 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.160 friends said this isn't really that big of a deal 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:47.600 because you could always just not use threads and just 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.320 let it lie dormant, and that is true, you could 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.679 do that. My concern is, let's say you've posted some 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:56.720 stuff on threads in the past that could potentially bite 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.280 you in the butt later on, because we've seen this 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:02.080 happen with Twitter over and over again. Right, Maybe you 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:06.600 criticized a company and now maybe you're interviewing with that company, 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:08.600 and so they do a deep dive in your social 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:10.560 and they're like, huh, we don't want to hire you 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:14.120 because five years ago you said that we are stinky 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.920 poop poopy pants and that we don't like that. Well, 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:22.240 you don't want that sticking around, Right. Maybe you said 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:24.920 some rude things about someone who now is an authoritarian 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:29.320 dictator of a country and you'd rather they not notice you. 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.639 Or maybe you have grown as a person, but perhaps 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.000 in your younger days you posted stuff that at the 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.800 time you were thinking was really edgy, but really it 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.760 was just poorly thought out quote unquote jokes. We've seen 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:44.600 that come back to haunt people. You might want to 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.040 eliminate your thread's account, right. You might just say like, oh, 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.000 I don't want to hunt through everything and take out 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:51.359 anything that could potentially be harmful to me. I just 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:53.200 want to get rid of the whole thing. But then 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:55.320 you would have to kill your Instagram account too, and 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:57.680 that could be a bridge too far, depending upon how 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:01.760 active you are on Instagram. Anyway, Meta claims that it 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:03.840 will change this further down the road, So that you 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:07.960 can eliminate your Thread's account without touching Instagram. But for 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.119 the moment, tying Threads to Instagram makes a whole lot 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.879 of sense. And why is that, Well, it's because Instagram 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:19.080 boasts more than a billion active users. In fact, depending 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:22.480 upon who's doing the reporting, it can go all the 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.960 way up to more than two billion users. By the way, 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:28.399 that is a heck of a discrepancy. A discrepancy of 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:33.560 a billion plus users is ridiculous. But you know, it's 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:35.639 one thing to go with the official statement and another 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:39.359 thing to go with the estimations that analts make. If 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.160 I'm going with the official statement, we just say more 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:46.080 than a billion, which is a whole bunch, right, So 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:50.200 it makes sense to tap into that already existing user 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:53.760 base of Instagram users rather than just build out a 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:57.960 brand new user base from scratch. And it is working, 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:00.719 as I record this, Threads as see more than one 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:04.919