WEBVTT - The History of Social Networks: Myspace and Facebook 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.480 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.239 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.279 and how the tech are you? So? This episode is 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:26.600 a continuation of one I published on Monday, November two thousand, 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.760 two days ago. If you're listening to this, the date 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:35.000 comes out and I'm walking through the history of social networks. 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.240 I was inspired to do this because of various crises 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.800 happening at Meta and Twitter, two of the heavy hitters 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.519 in the social network space, particularly here in the United States, 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.800 and the struggles these two companies are going through have 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:54.720 prompted some to suggest that perhaps the era of social 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.280 networks could be coming to an end. Now, I am 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.400 not ready to make such a lame, particularly since I 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.440 think the definition of social network is pretty wibbly wobbly, 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:10.480 if not timey whiney, and that you could argue platforms 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.800 like TikTok or at least a close cousin to social networks, 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.280 if not just a social network in a different form factor, 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.520 and that we're not likely to see the complete disappearance 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:26.360 of these things. But you know, that's just my opinion. Anyway, 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.080 in the last episode, we left off with the social 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.680 network High five, but we've got a whole bunch of 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:40.320 other social networks to talk about. And here's the real issue, y'all. 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:46.320 Two of the biggest, our most important social networks launched 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.800 not long after High five. So while I was hoping 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:54.240 to cover maybe five, maybe four social networks in this episode, 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.480 we're only going to get to two because they were 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.680 two very big ones and very important ones. Also, just 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.720 a reminder, this series is not really an exhaustive list 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:10.359 of every social network ever. There have been tons, including 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.880 some that never really found much traction, like some that 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:18.160 kind of quietly debuted, didn't really get enough users, and 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.480 then went away without anyone really paying much attention. So 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.680 I'm not covering every single one of them. My apologies 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.560 if I leave out your favorite obscure social network as 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.040 we go through this series. So here's our next entry. 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.720 It was a big one, at least for a while. 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.800 It began when a few e Universe employees, among them 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:44.480 two named Krista Wolfe and Everybody's friend Tom Anderson collaborated 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.720 to create a social network that from the start had 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:52.799 an emphasis on promoting and discovering music, it was, of 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:58.560 course my Space. So we're talking two thousand three here. Now. 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.520 Obviously these guys did not come up with the idea 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.880 for an online social network from scratch right like there 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.760 were previous social networks out there. In fact, they had 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.000 been using Friendster, and we talked about Friendster in the 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.680 previous episode in this series. So if you want to 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.200 hear more about that, listen to Monday's episode. Now, for 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.600 those of you who never joined my Space back in 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.480 its original incarnation, because I should point out my Space 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:29.000 still is a thing, it's just a different thing from 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.520 the original MySpace. Well, if you were never part of 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.560 my Space, you might not remember what it was like 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.760 to be on the site back in those days, so 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.560 pretty early on in MySpace history. Once it launched, users 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.520 could create a profile page that had their their photo 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.880 up on it that could link to other photos as well. Uh. 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.600 They could also include a short playlist of songs that 0:03:55.720 --> 0:04:01.000 were available on my Space and those would automatically play. 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.160 You could set it to automatically play when someone visited 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.360 your profile. This was something that was both interesting and infuriating, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.120 depending upon your friends musical tastes. It could also really 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.760 put friendships to the test. Right, You go and visit 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.120 a friend's page and you're like, Wow, I didn't know 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.440 that Jonathan was so into Debbie Gibson. Um, not that 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:21.520 I had Debbie Gibson. Actually I remember I had some 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.960 they might be Giants songs on my my Space profile page. 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:29.520 As I recall, it has been a long time since 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.680 I had on my Space page, so I I remember 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.120 having they might be Giant songs on there, but I 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:41.480 could be inventing that memory anyway. You could also deck 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.919 out your profile with various gimmicks that could make the 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:49.080 experience of visiting someone's profile and eye bleeding affair if 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:51.360 if you wanted it to be. A lot of folks 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.240 seem to adopt the more is more attitude and they 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.680 threw everything and the kitchen sync at their profiles. At 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:04.960 least my friends did that, so it was not subtle 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.040 in a lot of cases, like you would see some 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:11.239 profiles that have little animated flashes of light and things 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.560 like that on them, uh, making it very difficult to 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.359 read stuff on occasion. As for Tom, the co creator 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:22.080 that I said was everybody's friend, That was literally true 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.560 in my Space. When you first joined my Space, Tom 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:30.320 Anderson would populate your friends list, so you weren't starting 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:32.920 from nothing. You had Tom as your friend from the 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.400 very beginning. You could, of course removed Tom from your 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.719 friends list, but it was a nice touch to suggest 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.160 that all users really are our friends of one of 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.360 the creators of the site. Right, you've already got a friend. 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.080 You've got a friend in Tom. Now I should actually 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:50.080 add this was not always a thing, because technically Tom 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.920 didn't sign up for my Space until it had already launched, 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:58.000 like two weeks previously, So there was a time where 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.560 Tom was not automatically your friend if you were in 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.160 my Space at the very get go, which was unlikely 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.520 because that was really when the Universe crew themselves were 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:12.320 kind of launching things and testing it out. Uh, so, yeah, 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.480 he wasn't automatically your number one friend from right out 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.720 of the gate. MySpace introduced a few things that would 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.320 carry over into some other social networks, so some of 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.040 the stuff that my Space came up with would become 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.200 the bread and butter of social networks moving forward. For 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:33.200 one thing, while you could have dozens of friends, only 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.800 eight would appear on your profile page itself, like you 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:41.039 would have a list of your top eight friends on 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.320 your profile page, and you could select who appeared in 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.800 that list of eight. The rest of your friends people 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:48.760 would have to see by clicking through to your friends 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.159 list itself so they could view other friends. It's just 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.000 that these eight would be the ones that would be 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.920 featured on your profile page. So being one of someone's 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.320 top eight spaces became kind of like a popularity contest 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.680 or a status symbol. Weird. Al Yankovic would reference this 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:12.280 in his song White and Nerdy, which was a a 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.400 parody of millionaires writing dirty. So yeah, if you want 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.520 to listen to a dated tech reference, actually several of them, 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.559 you can listen to that parody song. But you might say, well, 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.360 how did my space even become a thing? How did 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.840 it start to become popular enough? Where being in these 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:36.480 top eight spaces was important? Because news sites and services 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:40.560 don't magically become popular instantaneously, right, They have to attract 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.040 a user base. There has to be a beginning to it. 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.200 Otherwise we can't get to the point where two friends 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.120 get into a real life argument because one of them 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.720 isn't in the other's top eight spaces on my Space. Well, 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:56.200 this gets back to the universe see the my Space 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.760 project began at that company, it didn't spin off to 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.280 be its own thing. This, by the way, is one 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:04.760 of the features of my Space that would later be 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.640 cited as a big mistake that it started at under 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.040 a Universe. And the reason why I say it would 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.720 be called a big mistake later on is that the 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:19.640 creators of MySpace didn't have ownership over my Space. So 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.440 when it was eventually bought out, which we will get to, 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:27.360 the creators did not get massive payouts, at least not 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:29.760 to the level they would have if they had spun 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.240 off MySpace as an independent project. So it started off 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.200 at the Universe. But one benefit of that was that 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:41.319 the Universe had a pretty big user base, like twenty 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:45.760 million email subscribers, so the Universe could lean on that 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.199 subscriber list to send out invitations to join my Space, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:55.480 So they already had access to a potential audience and 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.440 that was a big benefit. So this was a real 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.440 project the Universe, I mean the entire hierarchy. Even Brad Greenspan, 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.240 who was the CEO and chairman of the Universe, was 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:10.280 in on this. So they ended up inviting the Universe 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.640 customers to join my Space and that helped get a 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.040 lot of of folks over And you have to remember, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.240 in these early days of social networks, some of the 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.400 networks were hitting a peak of around two or three 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:28.720 million people, right, so that was considered a huge success 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.560 if you had a couple million users. But because the 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.760 universe already had access to like twenty million people, it 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.760 gave my Space a huge leg up, and so very 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.800 quickly my Space became the number one social network on 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.439 the web. You could argue part of that was because 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.120 of the lack of competition, but either way, it became 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:55.720 number one, and this really became a big deal. When 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.560 the site made a key change to how it operated, 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.920 it would really increase effic to the site. So originally 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.199 on my Space, the only people who could view your 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.000 profile page were people that you had designated as you 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.000 are friends. So you had to do like a friend 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.400 request and accept it, and at that point forward your 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:15.880 friend would be able to view your profile. But before 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.480 that they would not. They would just have to try 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.240 and contact you to see if you would become their friend. 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.360 The change in the spring of two thousand four was 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.880 that the site made all member profiles publicly viewable, and 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.200 that would mean that there would be a ton more 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.360 traffic going to my Space, which made it one of 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:37.400 the most popular sites in the web at that time. 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.480 Another thing that made my Space really popular is that 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:47.640 there was a pretty lax approach to content moderation, So 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.720 things got a little, you know, raunchy on my Space, 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.920 more so than you would see in later social networks. 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.959 It wasn't outright like bedlam Or or Solomon god Mora 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:05.760 or anything like that. It wasn't, you know, this crazy 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:10.120 hedonistic landscape, but things could get a little more racy 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:14.800 on the early MySpace. Now, year after my Space debuted, 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.960 we got Facebook, which obviously will play a huge part 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.360 in this episode when we get to the second half 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.280 of it. Really and in early two thousand five, when 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.679 Facebook had just launched the year before, my Space allegedly 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.880 attempted to buy out this competing social network. Keep in mind, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.160 Facebook in two thousand five was a very different thing 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:41.080 than Facebook today. It was just Facebook, and it was 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.520 really restricted to college students and maybe high school students. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.840 By two thousand five, and according to Julia Angwin's book 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.760 about the history of my Space, the MySpace reps came 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:58.400 to Zuckerberg, the head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, that is, 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.959 and they offered to acquire Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg quoted 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:07.920 them a price of seventy million dollars and that my 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.600 Space just said like, no, that's unreal estate, that's way 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.440 too much money. We're good, and they walked away from 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.600 the deal. Now, in hindsight, this would be a very 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.440 bad decision, like if my Space had bought Facebook, things 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:24.520 might may have turned out at least somewhat differently, But 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:26.640 at the time they had no way of knowing that, 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.160 so it's not like you can really blame them. They 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:34.720 just saw Facebook as a small time competitor. And besides that, 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:40.280 you could argue that this my Space decision was overshadowed 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.760 by a much larger, worse decision that was made later on, 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.120 So Facebook was not the only possible acquisition or merger 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:53.120 opportunity early on in my Space's history. Both match net 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.680 and Viacom showed early interest in acquiring my Space in 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.200 two thousand four, offering somewhere in the neighborhood of forty 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.640 million dollars, and my Space turned down those offers. So 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.440 my Space did the same thing, you know that they 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.079 were like, we're not going to sell for forty million, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.360 we feel we're worth more than that. And then, of 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.640 course Zuckerberg had a very similar attitude in two thousand five, 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.520 saying he felt Facebook's value with seventy five million, and 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.200 my Space was like, no, I don't. I don't think so. 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:25.360 So my Space and Friendster looked at a potential merger, 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:27.800 but they couldn't come to an agreement on that, so 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:33.040 ultimately that that fell through. But in June two thousand five, 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.719 a buyer with extremely deep pockets came a call in 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.920 and made my Space an offer it couldn't refuse. And 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:46.079 that caller was News Corporation or news Corps, the company 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.880 that at the time owned the Fox Entertainment Group and 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.200 several publishing and media concerns. It was run by Rupert Murdoch, 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.400 and the company came to my Space and made an 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:02.240 offer of five hundred eighty million in dollars. When you 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.360 get an offer that is more than ten times larger 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:10.520 than offers you got just a year earlier, stuff has 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.520 seriously changed, but it was on the precipice of changing 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:21.000 even more to a disastrous degree, which we will talk 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:25.080 about in just a moment. But first let's take a 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:37.000 quick break Okay, before the break, we had just got 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.800 to the point where news Corps acquired my Space for 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.800 five eight million dollars. After the acquisition, a few of 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.400 the folks at my Space actually stayed on and they 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.240 got huge paychecks. Were doing so so while they didn't 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.800 necessarily get an enormous payout because of the lack of 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.160 ownership of my Space, I mean, Brad Greenspan made out 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.720 really well, but a lot of the others didn't. Uh 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.400 some of them stayed on and they were getting massive 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.480 compensation packages from News Corps. So one of those people 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.560 was Dwolf, who met with Zuckerberg again in two thousand 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:13.880 five and again wanted to make an offer to acquire Facebook. Right. 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.240 Remember in two thousand four they had asked and we're 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.120 told sony five million. So what happened in two thousand five, Well, 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.360 this time Zuckerberg said, no, the price has gone up 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:26.760 now it's seven hundred fifty million. Obviously that didn't happen, 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.840 So once again, my Space walks away and decides not 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:35.080 to purchase Facebook. Within a short while, my Space became 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.800 the most visited site on the web, beating out Yahoo 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.160 and Google. It also landed a nearly one billion dollar 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.200 ad deal with Google, which meant that my spaces website 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:51.360 real estate would be peppered with ads served up through Google. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.680 On the site, Facebook was gaining momentum, but was still 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.440 seen as being a second you know, also ran like 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.800 it's distant second, partly because, as we'll talk about later on, 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.200 the site was initially catering to students but not the 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.920 public at large. And by two thousand seven we were 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:12.040 entering into a new era of social networks, the network 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:18.240 as a platform for developers. Facebook had actually already pioneered this, 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.440 and other social networks were trying to play catch up 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.760 to create a way for developers to make things that 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:27.520 could run on top of social networks that users could 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:32.240 tap into that would augment their experience in some way. 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.720 So this is a really important thing to consider. You know, 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.440 initially everything you encountered on social networks came pretty much 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:43.000 from the network itself, right You generated the content, but 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.520 all the tools, all the assets that you could use 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:51.240 to build out your profile, those were provided by whatever 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:56.720 the social network was. But otherwise that you were limited. 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.520 As these sites evolved, it became possible for third party 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.000 developers to build applications that could use the social network 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.280 as a foundation, so you can get stuff like games 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.000 or new ways to interact with other users. But in turn, 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:14.800 that was leading to a problem because the landscape was 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.080 terribly fractured. You have to keep in mind by this 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:21.560 time they were like a dozen or so social networks 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.159 out there. Now there were two really big ones. There 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:28.080 was my Space and Facebook, which was growing rapidly. Those 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.560 were very easy to spot, so you would understand that 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.360 developers would try to make stuff for those those platforms, 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:39.760 But there were tons of other social networks out there too, 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.800 including some that we've talked about in the last episode 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.720 like high five and some that we'll talk about in 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:50.520 the next episode. But without a common framework to rely 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.679 upon for developers, it would mean that developers would have 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.800 to pick and choose which platforms they would develop four 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.320 Otherwise they would have to build the same app numerous times, 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.120 so that would work on each and every social network. 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:09.199 That's an enormous time sinc and waste of energy and money. 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.719 The same sort of thing happens with game development, right Like, 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.560 ideally you develop a game for all platforms so that 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:21.320 you're available everywhere, but that's a huge commitment to do that. 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:25.119 You know, if you want, you could sign an exclusivity 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:28.560 deal and then you developed just for one platform. You've 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.439 limited your audience, but you've also restricted the amount of 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.080 work you're going to have to do to make it happen. Well, 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.400 to sidestep this problem of the fractured landscape, Google spearheaded 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.080 the Open Social Alliance that brought together a bunch of 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:48.480 different social networks, but not most notably Facebook, and they 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.920 were trying to build a set of software development standards 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:56.119 for social networks so that developers could use a common 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:01.480 set of tools to develop things for multiple networks time. Now, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:03.360 part of that might have been because at this point 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:05.439 it was becoming obvious that Facebook was going to be 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.920 a big existential threat because it was growing considerably. And 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.359 the next year, in two thousand and eight, Facebook overtook 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.480 MySpace in web traffic, and within another year it had 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:22.040 overtook my Space and unique visitors. People began to migrate 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.600 from my Space to Facebook. On top of that, my 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:29.359 Space was facing a lot of other problems. It wasn't 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.200 just that people were jumping shut from my Space to Facebook, 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.520 although that was a big part of it. There were 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.919 lawsuits against my Space that were stemming from some really 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.320 serious and dark issues. One was that various U. S. 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:47.000 Attorneys General had discovered numerous registered sex offenders who were 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.040 creating profiles on my Space, presumably with an intent to 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:57.240 uh to continue praying upon victims. So my Space also 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.280 became associated with some really really dark stuff like child 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:05.480 predators as well as there was an infamous suicide case 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.600 where a thirteen year old user of my Space was 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:15.360 the target of online abuse which was supposedly coming from 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:19.080 a teenage boy, but in fact was coming from a 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:23.119 grown woman, and she, this thirteen year old took her 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.240 own life. It was a true tragedy. Megan Meyer, I 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.399 will never forget that story. It was absolutely heartbreaking, and 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:34.239 that became associated with my Space. It was really an 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:38.240 early indication of how content moderation and community policies were 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:42.040 going to be critical for social networks moving forward, and 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.840 in fact, to this day we see conversations around content 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:50.199 moderation and policies being enforced and all of that kind 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.560 of stuff coming to the forefront. I mean, it's definitely 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:55.760 a big part of the conversation of what's going on 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.480 over at Twitter right now. So this is this is 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:03.399 something that we continue to struggle with today. Now. My 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:08.720 Space also had overextended itself and invested millions of dollars 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:13.119 into features that users weren't necessarily interested in, some of 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:15.359 which they might not have even been aware of simply 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.119 because they were hard to find um or in some 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:20.679 cases it was just because that's not why they created 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.320 a MySpace profile, so you know, there was no reason 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.679 for them to to explore these other features. But a 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:32.119 big one was the MySpace Music feature. MySpace had always 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.280 been kind of connected to music. I mean, one of 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.679 the things that my Space was used for from the 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:41.040 very beginning was to promote bands. So there were bands 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.439 out there that had uploaded their own music to my 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.679 Space so that people could discover them. Heck, one of 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.679 the bands that I followed quite a bit in the 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.400 early early to mid two thousand's uh, the Velvet Chain. 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:59.800 They had their own uh MySpace page that promoted their music, 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.760 and I had seen them play live a few times, 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.680 and so I was an avid follower of their their 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:08.879 profile page because I got to learn about new music 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.360 and new tours they were doing and that kind of thing. 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.880 So you could incorporate music into your profile pretty early 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:20.160 on with my Space, but this music feature, which included 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:23.359 agreements with three of the big four music labels Sony, 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.960 b MG, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group, would 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:33.119 let users MySpace users download music from these different you know, 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:36.920 publishers directly through my Space, Like you could make your 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.560 purchases and all that through my Space, you didn't have 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:45.760 to go to some other um online marketplace. But one, 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.639 it was arguable that users weren't terribly interested in doing 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:51.879 this through my Space anyway. And two it was not 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:55.040 easy to even find the darn thing. And three they 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:59.320 had some technical issues pretty early on that marred the feature. 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:03.440 Then there was a massive change of the guard at 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:09.400 my Space. Uh, the CEO and president were essentially removed, 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:12.520 so that was like de Wolf and Tom Anderson and 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:16.239 a former Facebook executive was brought in to kind of 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:20.800 fixed things. Uh. That executive would then go about laying 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:24.800 off around thirty of all my Space employees. So that 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:29.159 was tough. And around this same time, Google's nine million 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:34.399 dollar ad deal expired, so you also had my Space 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.280 falling behind Facebook, and it had just lost its major 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:42.679 source of revenue because this ad deal has expired, and 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:45.520 and it also launched lost a healthy chunk of its workforce. 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:48.480 A lot of bad things were hitting by Space all 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:53.679 at the same time, and you also had stories about 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:57.720 a really bad company culture. And and in the wake 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:01.280 of things like uby Soft and a division Blizzard, where 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:04.520 we've heard about truly toxic environments, it doesn't sound to 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:09.120 me like my Space was that kind of bad work culture. 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:11.880 I mean, maybe that was going on too, but what 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:16.400 was being reported was that under the ownership of News Corps, 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:21.480 my spaces corporate culture got very much bogged down with bureaucracy, 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:24.480 and so it was very hard to innovate and it 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:27.520 was hard to move quickly, and so everything in my 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:30.360 Space was bogged down, and there were departments that were 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:34.840 working at cross purposes with each other, and it was 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:38.560 just a very frustrating experience trying to get stuff done. 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:43.160 From what I understand, maybe there were the toxicity problems too, 0:24:43.240 --> 0:24:46.080 but that was not really heavily reported on. This was 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:51.280 also before the Me Too movement, so that's part of it. Uh. Anyway, 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:54.840 things over the next couple of years got worse and worse, 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:57.920 and by two thousand and eleven it was really grim. 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:01.560 My space was a shadow of what it had once been. 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:06.000 So News Corps made the decision to cut ties. It's 0:25:06.040 --> 0:25:10.280 sold off my Space for thirty five million dollars. Now, 0:25:10.320 --> 0:25:14.280 remember this is the same company that News Corps had 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:18.040 bought for five hundred eighty million dollars just a few 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:22.600