WEBVTT - The Twitter Story, But Longer 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.400 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.080 Johnathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.959 and how the Tech are You? You know, tech Stuff 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:24.960 has a long history with Twitter. Way back when I 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.800 was a writer for how Stuff works dot com, I 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:32.000 became one of the first employees to establish a Twitter account, 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.280 and I would use that account to share articles I 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:37.840 had written, as well as you know, make goofy jokes 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.960 and share photos of pets and tacos and that kind 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.839 of thing. And my use of Twitter actually got me 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:47.040 an award at work because I had found a new 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.559 form of outreach. I didn't set out to win an award. 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.120 This just kind of happened because I was just using Twitter, 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.880 and I honestly was really worried because the thing I 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:00.520 was doing on my own for funzies is likely to 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:04.120 become a mandated part of our work, which meant my 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.800 co workers who had no interest in creating Twitter accounts 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.240 might find that they were obligated to. So whoop. See, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.520 this is why we can't have nice things now. When 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.680 we launched the podcast text Stuff, Twitter was front of mind. 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:22.440 We actually did an episode about Twitter on our twelfth episode. Ever, 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.919 this was back when Chris Palette was my co host, 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.440 and then six years after that, Lauren Vogelbaum and I 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:34.240 would do an episode called The Twitter Story back in 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.560 the early Feen, I should add, and this was back 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.880 when she was my co host. But a lot has 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.960 happened since two thousand fourteen, not the least of which 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.000 is the ongoing drama between Elon Musk and Twitter, which 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.920 we will get to. I mean, for one thing, now, 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.640 I have no co host, so today I thought we'd 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.120 do an update on what's been going on now. I'm 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:59.160 also gonna do a rundown of the early history of Twitter, 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.200 so that way you don't have to seek out those 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.680 older episodes if you don't want to. However, I want 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.440 to say I'm not gonna go over everything we covered 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.440 in those previous episodes. I'm gonna hit kind of the 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.120 highlights at Twitter. But if you want to learn more, 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.560 including some of the pivotal moments in history that Twitter 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.120 played a part in, I recommend going back through the 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:24.160 archives and checking out those episodes, particularly The Twitter Story, 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:30.280 which published I think maybe February four Okay, once upon 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.120 a time, you had a fellow by the name of 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.000 Noah Glass who built a tool that would let you 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:40.120 convert a phone message into an MP three file, and 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.560 you could host that MP three file on a service 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.360 on the Internet. And this was the core focus of 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.560 a company that was called Odeo o d e O. 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.400 Odio brought on a guy named Evan Williams to become 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.359 the CEO. Williams had co founded Blogger, so he already 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.560 had a winning record in startups, if by winning record 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.720 you mean creating a tool that would later get bought 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.280 by Google and being a little snarky. But Blogger is 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.600 actually still around today. It's one of the few things 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.240 Google purchased that it did not subsequently shut down just 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:13.840 a few years later. In fact, I don't really have 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.320 it in this episode, but Google did purchase a Twitter 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.919 like service called Jaku and then subsequently shut that down, 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:27.040 so that happens a lot anyway. Evan Williams brought over 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:31.840 biz Stone from Google to join Odio, and another person 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.680 who was working at Odeo as a web developer was 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.920 named Jack Dorsey. And obviously these folks would become very 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.680 important in the history of Twitter. One of the company's 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.200 first big projects was to build out a podcasting platform. 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.480 So podcasting at this time was still a pretty young 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.720 art form, and the leaders at Odeo saw an opportunity 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.040 to become kind of the dominant podcasting platform in the space, 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:00.680 to allow people to discover and subscribe to podcast easily, 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.120 and they launched their platform, and then shortly after, Apple 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.000 launched its own podcast section in iTunes, and that was 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.720 pretty much curtains for Odio's product. Apple already had incredible reach, 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.520 I bought owners were reliant on iTunes in order to 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.200 add new content to their devices, and so incorporating a 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:24.040 podcast subscription feature into iTunes kind of shut the door 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.640 down on everybody else at that time. I mean, we 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:33.159 do call them podcasts after all. Odios podcast platform, technically 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.240 launched ahead of iTunes, went live earlier in two thousand five. 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.400 But even after Odio flipped the switched on, there was 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.880 a big problem because no one was using Odio, Not 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.200 even Odio employees were using it. They had built a tool, 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:48.839 but they hadn't convinced anyone that the tool was, you know, 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:54.080 worth using. Jack Dorsey meanwhile, was contemplating a different course altogether. 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.880 Dorsey thought it might be interesting to create a service 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.880 that would let people post status updates in real time, 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.760 sort of like a very stripped down social media platform, 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.400 one where you could just post your stats update and 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.520 push it out to folks in your social circle, like 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.400 the people in your contact list. For example. Maybe for 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:15.520 you might be thinking about you want to go bowling, 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.039 and you want to see if any of your friends 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.400 are down, so you could send out a what would 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.080 be more or less a group text message using the service, 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.960 saying going bowling, want to join, and then waiting to 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.200 see if anyone responds. Now, according to Dorsey, he had 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.479 actually been mulling this over for several years already. He 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.040 wanted a tool that would let folks update their status 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.680 in real time using a mobile device. Now, remember this 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:41.800 was before iPhones and therefore before the smartphone phenomenon, at 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:44.080 least among the mainstream. Back in the early to mid 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.320 two thousand's, most devices that would qualify as a smartphone 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.000 were in the hands of executives and maybe a few 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.000 curious early adopters, and they looked, you know, more like 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.839 the old BlackBerry. Phones often had physical keyboards. Dorsey wanted 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.560 to create something that would work with simple cell phones 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.280 because that's what most people had. Dorsey eventually teamed up 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.240 with Noah Glass and they brought in a contract developer 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.679 named Florian Webber, and together they fleshed out this idea 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.440 and began to build what would become Twitter. You would 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.520 have the platform that would support status updates. You could 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.200 follow folks that you knew, so you could essentially subscribe 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.880 to them and then keep up with what was going 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.040 on in their lives. So when they posted an update, 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.799 you could get an alert. You can get a text 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.240 message telling you about that update that actually has the 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:37.080 update in it. You could still text person to person obviously, 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.440 but this would let folks communicate one too many, not 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:45.000 just one to one. So the team presented the idea 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:49.640 to Odio's leadership and and this was in two thousand six, 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.080 and originally they were going to call it Twitter with 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.240 no vowels so t W T t r UH, and 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.560 they got a tentative go ahead from Odeo, which was 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.480 mostly in crisis mode over its primary product not going anywhere. 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.159 On March twenty one, two thousand six, Jack Dorsey would 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.200 send the first message on Twitter, and just like with 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.480 the first video of YouTube, the actual historical first is 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:16.760 a bit underwhelming, He wrote, quote, just setting up my 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:21.360 Twitter again t W T t R. Now a quick 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.800 reminder for folks who may have forgotten. Way back in 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.640 the earliest days of Twitter, there was a one hundred 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:31.200 forty character limit on messages. And you might wonder why. Well, 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.080 the whole service was built on top of the SMS 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.560 texting service, and SMS could only carry messages of up 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.400 to one hundred sixty characters in length. Twitter allowed just 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.600 a hundred forty because it would reserve twenty characters for 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:48.040 user handles and that kind of thing. Using SMS was 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.280 important for Twitter because all the work building out the 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.600 technology to actually make texting possible had already been done. 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.200 Twitter didn't have to invent that it existed. Twitter's technology 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:01.920 could be on top of that foundation. Twitter would go 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.880 on to build both a web based interface and also 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.600 allow users to interact with Twitter purely through texting on 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.720 their cell phones. This would also mean that early Twitter users, 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.600 depending on how they enabled Twitter and how they used it, 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:16.680 would have to keep in mind that they could get 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.120 charged for texting due to Twitter activity. Uh and it's 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.000 not so much the case today, but back in the day, 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:27.240 like cell phone companies, carriers would find lots of creative 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.680 ways to charge you, including if you used too many 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.120 messages in a month. In July of two thousand six, 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.160 Twitter again still t w t t R, launched sort of. 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.280 It was a pretty small launch and that most of 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:46.960 the users were either Odio people or Silicon Valley folks 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.920 like investors and people who worked at other tech companies. 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.720 In September of two thousand and six, Evan Williams would 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.960 buy back the stake that various investors had in Odio. 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.000 So Williams was saying that Odio's podcast platform was a 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.640 bust and that very few people, maybe around five thousand, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.440 had even registered with Twitter. So he was saying, rather 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:13.040 than have your investment become a loss, I will buy 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:17.080 back your investment now. Later speculation suggested that Williams could 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.160 see where Twitter was going, and so he wanted to 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.720 get ahead of it in order to really profit off 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.080 of it. Like he would spend the money now to 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.480 buy back these investments, but then once Twitter took off, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.080 he would really be making bank. Now. I don't know 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:34.000 about that. It's possible, but then nothing in tech is 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.079 a sure bet, and that sounds like a really hefty 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.480 gamble to me, but it might have been the case, 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:41.800 and if it was a gamble, it did pay off. 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.360 Around this time, Noah Glass got fired from Odio. Now 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.760 apparently Glass and Evan Williams had opposing personalities, and Glass 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.120 would later say that he had actually been planning to 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:57.559 spend Twitter off from Odio and then lead Twitter himself. 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.240 That obviously never happened. Instead, Video changed its name to 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:06.360 Obvious Corporation and it prepped for two thousand seven. That's 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.520 when the platform made a big appearance at south By Southwest. 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.560 That's obviously this this huge event that happens in Austin, Texas, 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:20.840 and if it revolves around three major topics. There's music, 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.880 so all these different bands from around the world come 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.240 to Austin and play shows. There's movies, so you've got 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:32.160 lots of studios and independent filmmakers showing films at south 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:36.640 By Southwest. And then there's interactive or technology, and that's 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.640 what you know Obvious Court was going to. And so 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.880 Twitter made an appearance and it won an award and 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:46.440 got a lot more coverage. So while the service had 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.240 been up for a little less than a year, you 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.840 could argue that March two thousand seven was the real 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.160 starting point for Twitter, because it was at south By 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.920 Southwest that the tech world in general really latched onto 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.280 it and it began to grow rap and a month later, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:06.560 Obvious Corporations spun off Twitter as a standalone company. Dorsey 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.480 would end up serving as CEO of Twitter and Evan 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.400 Williams would be Chairman of the board. Twitter would go 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.559 on to raise nearly six million dollars in initial funding 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.560 with investors, and for many many years, Twitter, getting a 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.000 fresh influx of investor cash would be how the company 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.679 would stay in business. It actually became something of a 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.680 running joke that Twitter would be a tool that everyone wanted, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.839 everyone used, but it had no real way to make 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.520 any money. So the only way it could stay in 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.240 business is if it asked investors to pour more cash 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.120 into it. Something else that would become a running joke 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.800 with Twitter for a few years anyway, involved its web interface, 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.200 so this was still kind of coming together in two 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.760 thousand seven and two thousand eight. But the web interface 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:53.880 would let you scroll through tweets and post new tweets 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.319 without having to use your phone. You could navigate to 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.120 the web page into it. You can still do that today. 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.200 In fact, a lot of people do how of her. 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:04.200 Twitter was really growing very quickly, and sometimes stuff broke, 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.720 particularly during you know, busy moments, like if there was 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:09.840 a big cultural event that a lot of people were 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:14.200 reacting to that could really tax Twitter's servers, and when 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.920 that happened, web users would frequently encounter an error page 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.520 that had a cartoon whale on it. It was a 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.120 cartoon whale being lifted into the air by a bunch 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:25.800 of little birds. It was artwork that was created by 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:29.440 an artist named ye Inglu for a stock art site. 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.000 Lou had originally created the image for a birthday card, 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.040 and she called the image lifting a dreamer. But on 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.680 Twitter this image had a different name. It became known 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.520 as the fail Whale, and back in the old days, 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:44.839 he saw it fairly frequently if you were an avid 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.000 Twitter user. If you're not familiar with the fail Whale, 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.000 chances are your experience with Twitter started after the year 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.679 two thousand and thirteen, because that's when Twitter finally discontinued 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.960 the use of the image. In October two thousand eight, 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.200 Jack Dorsey would stepped down as CEO of Twitter for 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:06.000 the first time, but not the last time. Evan Williams 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.680 became the new CEO and Dorsey became the new chairman 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.520 of the board, which meant that the two of them 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.960 just did the old switchero. Apparently working for Dorsey could 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:19.200 be a bit challenging, according from insider reports on Twitter, 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.480 so there appeared to be an impetus for this change. 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.440 In January two thousand nine, Twitter would make world headlines 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.320 because a tweet actually broke a news story before any 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.720 major media outlet could do it, and that news story 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.920 was the crash landing of US Airways Flight fifty nine 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.959 into the Hudson River. The plane had collided with a 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.280 flock of birds shortly after it took off from LaGuardia Airport, 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:48.440 and pilots Jeffrey Skiles and Chesley Sully Sullenberg glided the 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.280 plane into the Hudson. All passengers and crew survived. A 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.920 few folks received some serious injuries, but other than that, uh, 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.360 it was remarkably safe, and the message on Twitter got 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.040 boosted and seen before any official news outlets could get 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.680 word out, and it became obvious that Twitter could play 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.959 a critical role in covering important events in real time, 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.800 not just an app that let you say what you 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:15.200 were having for lunch. Okay, we're gonna take a quick 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:24.600 break here. When we come back, we will continue Twitter's history. 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.720 We're back. So in two thousand nine, Jack Dorsey co 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:35.040 founded another company, and this company is a payment processing service, 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:37.760 with the big selling point at the time being that 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.080 you could get an attachment for a mobile device that 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:45.680 would let you swipe credit cards and process the fees 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.440 right there, which drastically reduced the infrastructure you needed in 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:51.800 order to have a point of sale that could accept 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.920 credit cards. So this is when suddenly merchants who would 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.360 go to like festivals and stuff would be able to 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.840 easily accept credit cards because using a mobile device that's 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:06.160 connected to the cellular network, using this add on and 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.960 then swiping a card, they could actually process payments without 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.720 having to get the old carbon copy stuff out. That 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.880 company is of course named Square, and while it's not 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.200 directly tied to Twitter, Square would have a huge impact 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:25.280 on Twitter's history. Later on, in October, Evan Williams would 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.160 step down as CEO to focus on product strategy, and 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:34.080 former CEO of Twitter, Dick Costello would take over and 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:41.200 remain CEO until now. In Twitter would launch Vine, which 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.000 is a short form video app, or was a short 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.920 form video app. They'll let users post videos that were 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.840 just six seconds long. And you know, their original intent 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.680 was just to create a video version of a tweet, 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.880 like something that's very short and very timely that you 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:02.520 could then share online. However, people took to Vine in 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:06.240 order to build stories and very short films and making 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:10.920 a really good Vine became a real art form and 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.880 and a lot of people use it for storytelling or 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.560 more accurately, joke telling. And Vine would stick around for 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:19.960 a few years, but Twitter would ultimately shut it down 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:24.600 in and I'll talk about why that happened and a 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:30.480 little bit. In November, Twitter held its initial public offering 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:32.560 or i p O. Now, in case you're not familiar 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.240 with that term, that's when a privately held company transitions 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:41.000 into becoming a publicly traded company with shares trading on 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.320 a stock market somewhere. This lets anyone who has the 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.480 cash become an investor by buying up a share or 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.760 maybe a few shares or maybe a few thousand shares 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.360 before the stock market opened. The offer price was to 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:57.800 be around twenty six dollars per share, so part of 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.080 the process of the I p O is that a 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:03.720 company has to kind of figure out what they think 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.879 a share price is worth. And this is supposed to 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:09.719 be based upon the value of the company, and you're 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.000 supposed to take all these different things into account. There's 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.600 a very long process for doing it. So in Twitter's case, 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.840 they thought this merit's a twenty six dollar price for 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:24.040 a share of stock of Twitter. Instead, due to intense 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.919 interest in the market, when sales opened up, those shares 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.480 were moving at forty five dollars per share. At the 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:34.800 end of the day, it closed just slightly lower than that, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.160 at forty four dollars ninety cents per share, and still 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.560 much higher than twenty six bucks. Right now, if you're curious, 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.879 the day I'm recording this episode, Twitter is currently trading 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.960 in around thirty three dollars and fifty cents to thirty 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.359 three dollars and sixty cents per share, somewhere around in 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.359 that range. So still higher than what the opening offer 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.040 price was going to be, but lower than what the 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.840 actual price of Twitter stock was for that first day 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.760 of trading. Not Over time, Twitter's stock price would grow 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:07.520 um not steadily. There were times where it would dip 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:09.280 a bit and then it would grow a bit. It 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.399 hit a high, but not an all time high, in 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.280 December of two thousand thirteen, when it closed at a 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.040 price of seventy three dollars and thirty one cents per share. 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:24.800 Really amazing, Like when you consider that's one month after 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:30.439 it started trading, that's phenomenal. However, in February two thousand 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.199 and fourteen, Twitter reported that its growth had slowed, with 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:39.800 an increase of just five additional users. So the way 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.879 that these metrics work, it's not just that you have 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.800 to keep growing in order to be perceived as valuable. 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:50.080 You need to be growing at an increasingly faster rate 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.440 for the market to consider your company as still being valuable. 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:58.480 When your growth begins to slow, investors get nervous because 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.640 they're worried that's just a matter of time before that 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.400 growth number levels out and then begins to be a 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:08.160 lost number instead of a growth number. So you never 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.600 want to see the growth rate decrease. At best, you 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.000 want to level it out, but you don't want to 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.760 see it go down from one year to the next anyway. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.280 The stock price began to decline starting around early two 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.199 thousand fourteen, and by May fourteen, it was down to 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.439 thirty dollars fifty cents per share, less than half of 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.800 what it had been at its earlier peak. But then 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.440 two years later, on May twenty six, two thousand sixteen, 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.480 it would be all the way down to fourteen dollars 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:43.000 and three cents per share. Yikes, um, and a lot 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.280 of stuff was going on to make this happen. Right, 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:50.080 The stock price was reacting to lots of investor worries. 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:54.640 Whenever Twitter would say that they hadn't met their revenue goals, 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.760 or that their growth rate was lower than expected, or 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:04.240 that user engage it wasn't on the incline, then you 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.879 would see a loss of investor confidence and ultimately a 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:12.440 drop in share price. Now, over time, that price would recover. 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.400 It was in the teams for a really long time, 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:17.560 but eventually it would grow back into the twenty and 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:20.639 thirty dollar range and then higher. So by two thousand eighteen, 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.520 the price would still be fluctuating, but generally was on 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.919 a path of growth, and by March first, two thousand 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.000 twenty one, the price hit its all time high of 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:34.800 seventy seven dollars sixty three cents per share. All right, um, 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.000 we're now past the point where the old Twitter Story 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.920 podcast left off, because, like I said, we recorded that 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.919 in the winter often like the early winter. February I 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.840 think is when we recorded it. So let's talk about 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:54.040 stuff that happened after February fourteen. If we go to 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:58.359 the end of that year, December, Twitter released some anti 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.760 harassment tools, so it was bowing to pressure to do 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:06.040 something about the intense abuse some users were receiving for 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.000 having the audacity to do radical things like being a 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.639 woman or you know, having an opinion that was different 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.200 from other people. I'm being more than a little snarky here, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.800 but we have to remember, Okay. August of two thousand 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.800 fourteen was when we had the beginning of gamer gait, 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:27.160 which was a truly awful campaign in which angry people, 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:32.359 mostly men and mostly straight, began to target mostly women 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:36.960 in the video games industry. Now not exclusively, there were 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.480 other people who were targeted to the way this was 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:43.040 framed was that it was a crusade to weed out 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:49.000 corruption and misinformation in the video game industry and video 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:53.160 game journalism, the idea being that video game reviewers were 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:57.160 frequently compensated in some way or had some vested interest 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.800 in how games were doing, and that that was guiding 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:05.320 their their what they would write about games. Like in 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:07.879 some cases it was just that someone didn't like a 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:12.800 game that you know, the rabid fan base absolutely loved, 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.640 and that that was akin to committing treason, and so 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.919 this rabid group of fans would want to punish the 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.960 person who wrote something critical about a game they loved. 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:28.520 So again, a lot of the people who are targeted 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:30.640 in gamer Gate were women, and some of those women 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:33.160 were journalists who covered video games. Some of the women 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:37.080 were developers in the space or publishers, and the gamer 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.639 Gate jerks would use all sorts of abusive tactics, including 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:44.680 but not limited to, dockx ing and swatting their targets. 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:47.359 So dockx ing is when you reveal a person's personal 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.439 information online, so it's someone else like someone else's info, 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.920 and you're sharing it online. Swatting is when you use 0:22:56.000 --> 0:23:00.840 personal information to call in a police act and on 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:05.320 a target. So you would give your targets home address 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:09.520 and say that there was something really like critically dangerous 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.040 going on there in order to get police to send, 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:15.480 you know, people, perhaps even a whole swat team to 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:17.880 go and check in on that target, and it's all 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:21.080 in an effort to harass, terrorize, or otherwise disrupt the 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:26.240 target's life. So this was happening with gamer Gate a lot. 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:30.840 And while the supposed reason for gamer Gate was to 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:35.680 try and uh and hold the video game industry accountable, 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:40.600 what it really was about was these these people who 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:44.320 were who felt ownership over an industry that they did 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:49.040