Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from How Stuff Workstop coming, Hello everybody, and
Speaker 1: welcome to text Stuff. My name is Chris Poette and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor here at how Stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan
Speaker 1: Stricklin there and uh, so, what do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about today? Well, I thought we'd talked about topic
Speaker 1: that we talked about. It seems pretty much every day pie. No,
Speaker 1: not pie, different topic. The other topic we talked about
Speaker 1: every days the hundred forty character topic that that just
Speaker 1: won't die. Um, there's no, no, no, there's no secret.
Speaker 1: I'm a Twitter junkie. I really am, and that really
Speaker 1: is no secret, right everyone who follows kay and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of other Twitter junkies out there, but
Speaker 1: they're starting to become an unwelcome audience in certain venues.
Speaker 1: And that's why you wanted to talk about specifically sporting events. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is the sports section this week. Yes, um? No, actually, um,
Speaker 1: it's been in the news quite a lot recently, especially
Speaker 1: with UM with the start of the Southeastern Conference football
Speaker 1: schedule not too long ago. Yes, I had to have
Speaker 1: someone explained to me. But football, apparently is a game
Speaker 1: in which two teams battle it out on a field
Speaker 1: that has been divided up into a hundred yards and
Speaker 1: you have to move a ball from your side to
Speaker 1: the other side. Um. You know, since you pointed out,
Speaker 1: uh in an attempt to embarrass me, that I have
Speaker 1: not seen the movie Jaws and all in it, and
Speaker 1: I'll own up to that. I can't see how you
Speaker 1: managed to graduate from the University of Georgia, which is
Speaker 1: one of the perennial well, actually everybody in the SEC
Speaker 1: is is known for uh not knowing that football is
Speaker 1: a game. I hate to tell you this, but I
Speaker 1: did not attend a single football game while I was
Speaker 1: at the University of Georgia. In fact, football games where
Speaker 1: the bane of my existence at U g A. But
Speaker 1: that's for a different that's for a different story altogether. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've established that sports are an important part of
Speaker 1: life in the Southeastern Conference. It's a big draw, especially football.
Speaker 1: I would say, yes, yes, there's a there's not an
Speaker 1: underestimation to say it's a billion dollar industry. It's actually
Speaker 1: a multibillion dollar industry. And uh so when you're talking
Speaker 1: about a multibillion dollar industry, you've got people who are
Speaker 1: financially uh involved in this thing obviously, and that's that's
Speaker 1: a lot of money. So anyone who's gonna have their
Speaker 1: finances dependent upon something like that, they want as much
Speaker 1: control over it as possible. And part of that is
Speaker 1: controlling the information about the games as the games go on. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is because of those really really lucrative television contracts yea.
Speaker 1: And when I said billions of dollars, that's what I'm
Speaker 1: really talking about here. Yeah, Yeah, these TV contracts with
Speaker 1: which give exclusive rights to certain channels to to show
Speaker 1: certain games. Yep. Um. In this case with regard to
Speaker 1: the with the SEC um, they have a vendor XOS Technologies.
Speaker 1: That's probably pronounced something different, but that's why I've only
Speaker 1: seen it in print sauce. Yes, entirely possible. Uh And
Speaker 1: so the SEC said, look, we are creating a new
Speaker 1: media policy. You can't tweet, you can't send video out,
Speaker 1: you can't send audio out, you can't blog about the
Speaker 1: games while you're sitting in the stadium. You can't update
Speaker 1: your Facebook status to say just saw an amazing touchdown
Speaker 1: by so and so. Yep, can't do it because we
Speaker 1: said no, And that means that you're that they were
Speaker 1: going to try to control I don't know, upwards of
Speaker 1: hundred thousand or more fans usual. It was crazy. That
Speaker 1: stadium is always packed. Every single SEC stadium has a
Speaker 1: huge capacity at least everyone that I've been in, and
Speaker 1: I've been in a few of them, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: try and control all those fans, not to mention the
Speaker 1: people in the press box whose job it is to
Speaker 1: actually uh you know, talk about the games as they
Speaker 1: go on, and it actually applied to them too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Southeast, Uh, they treat football differently than other parts
Speaker 1: of the country. I would say. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: people who are really into their football teams, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, but the Southeast conferences that are going to
Speaker 1: argue with you when you're gonna get listener mail about that,
Speaker 1: I don't care the Southeast. It is a religion people,
Speaker 1: I am not joking. You see generations of people from
Speaker 1: like a U. G. A. I would see four generations
Speaker 1: of a family all attending a football game. You would
Speaker 1: have the the you know, the grand parents, the parents,
Speaker 1: the students, and then like their little nieces and nephews
Speaker 1: who aren't even old enough to spell you g a
Speaker 1: much less be a bulldog. So you and I mean,
Speaker 1: I know people who live in in in Georgia who
Speaker 1: never attended the University of Georgia who call themselves bulldogs.
Speaker 1: This is crazy to me. I went to the U
Speaker 1: to u g A, and I did not call myself
Speaker 1: a bulldog. Well, but maybe that's just because I'm lacking
Speaker 1: that sports gene. At any rate, it is a big
Speaker 1: business and and that's why the SEC came out with
Speaker 1: this media policy. They wanted to make sure that they
Speaker 1: were protecting that very lucrative and and and and that yes,
Speaker 1: that's important. And uh, the thing is it's sent a
Speaker 1: lot of people off into what they might call a tizzy. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: there was a bit of a tizzy over this. And
Speaker 1: uh and as you pointed out, how do you enforce
Speaker 1: something like this, You're talking about such a Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you've got the combination of a huge number of people,
Speaker 1: you've got smartphone saturation reaching a point that is greater
Speaker 1: than it ever has been in the history of the
Speaker 1: United States. I mean, you know, everyone seems to have
Speaker 1: some sort of phone that is compatible with with at
Speaker 1: least Twitter. I mean, anyone with a text messaging plan
Speaker 1: can can post a Twitter. It doesn't even need to
Speaker 1: be a smart phone. It could be a regular cell phone.
Speaker 1: So you've got potentially nine thousand people who all could
Speaker 1: access this social media uh certain, all these social media
Speaker 1: services in some way or another. There's no way to
Speaker 1: control that. So, first of all, the premise alone was ridiculous,
Speaker 1: but the policy really did tick off a lot of
Speaker 1: people because there are other arguments to make, such as, hey,
Speaker 1: if I'm at home and uh or I'm on the road.
Speaker 1: Let's say I'm on the road and I don't have
Speaker 1: access to a channel that is showing this, and there's
Speaker 1: no way that I could watch this through a quote
Speaker 1: unquote uh legitimate way of you know, there's no way
Speaker 1: I could all the game legitimately. What's wrong with getting
Speaker 1: a Twitter message that says that someone scored a touchdown? Also,
Speaker 1: I don't see this as replacing any sort of broadcast
Speaker 1: kind of uh function. I mean, who in their right
Speaker 1: mind is gonna say, you know, I could turn on
Speaker 1: ESPN and watch the game, but I'd rather read about it.
Speaker 1: In a hundred and forty characters at a time. That's
Speaker 1: the way I want to consume my football, so to speak.
Speaker 1: I mean, not literally consume your football as I understand it,
Speaker 1: they are made from pigskin. Uh yeah, I am. You know,
Speaker 1: I used to be a big fan of those. Depends
Speaker 1: it depends on I think it depends on the league
Speaker 1: and then and then, but yeah, probably anyway, Basically what
Speaker 1: happened was, after after the initial outcry, the SEC realized
Speaker 1: that it needed to resolve this before the beginning of
Speaker 1: the football season, which so they rapidly approaching as we
Speaker 1: record this, it will already be in progress once this
Speaker 1: goes life right actually where we're we're podcasting immediately before
Speaker 1: the the first the pardon kickoff weekend. We're actually tailgating
Speaker 1: right now. Who um. But the thing is, they realized
Speaker 1: that we're gonna have to take care of this very quickly,
Speaker 1: and so what they did was they actually revised it
Speaker 1: a couple of times, but the most recent revision as
Speaker 1: of this recording, allows credentialed professionals to do what they
Speaker 1: need to do as far as you know, there what
Speaker 1: what they what they need to do as far as
Speaker 1: their normal media activity, but the average person in the
Speaker 1: stands is still not supposed to be twittering or sending
Speaker 1: uploading video or audio of the game. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: you could probably be kicked out of the stadium if
Speaker 1: you're caught, but come on, you're in. You're one of
Speaker 1: ninety thousand people if they don't enforce the no alcohol rules, right,
Speaker 1: no joke. So yeah, this I just I don't see
Speaker 1: them being able to enforce this at all without spending
Speaker 1: way more money than they would lose from anyone watching
Speaker 1: a little snippet of video online. Um. I mean, I
Speaker 1: assume that this is all because of exclusivity deals that
Speaker 1: that that their contracts state. So technically, if they did
Speaker 1: not take these steps, they would be responsible to the
Speaker 1: broadcast partners who would say, hey, our contract says that
Speaker 1: you would, you know, only do this for us, and
Speaker 1: if you're letting other people do it, then you're violating
Speaker 1: the contract. Okay, from a legal standpoint, I can understand it.
Speaker 1: From a practical one, it just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And this is the way the world is moving. You know,
Speaker 1: We're moving into a world where you can't turn around
Speaker 1: without someone having a cell phone out capturing video or
Speaker 1: taking pictures of something. There's no newsworthy event going on
Speaker 1: in the world today that does not have someone pointing
Speaker 1: a phone at it. When you can see video images
Speaker 1: from the darkest regions of the most remote places on
Speaker 1: Earth because someone has a cellphone that happens to have
Speaker 1: a camera and they are able to open it up
Speaker 1: and take video of it, you can no longer expect
Speaker 1: that to to be a non factor. It is here
Speaker 1: to stay, Jonathan and yeah, breathe, pie, He's gone to
Speaker 1: his happy place. Yes, my happy places. Okay. The thing
Speaker 1: is it's not just the SEC. There are other people
Speaker 1: trying to control Twitter too. What and uh well, I
Speaker 1: mean other sports organizations. And the funny thing is all
Speaker 1: of the sports major sports leagues and their teams have
Speaker 1: Twitter feeds. Even the SEC does. There's an SEC Twitter feed.
Speaker 1: But other recent news has the NFL prohibiting social media
Speaker 1: activities during games as well. Now as I understand that
Speaker 1: the NFL is an organization where people play this game
Speaker 1: I was talking about, but they do it for money
Speaker 1: instead of for getting good grades. I mean, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to suggest that football players in college
Speaker 1: get good grades in return for playing football. I would
Speaker 1: never suggest such a thing. I certainly never saw that
Speaker 1: at g A. I was what. I never saw it
Speaker 1: that I just said, I never saw that. Actually, if
Speaker 1: you're going to go there, never mind, I shouldn't say
Speaker 1: that something about, you know, violating rules by getting paid
Speaker 1: while you're in college and playing ball, no kidding, um.
Speaker 1: And I certainly wouldn't say that about any school because
Speaker 1: I've never seen that happen. Truth be told, I have
Speaker 1: never seen it happen. I am not making any allegations now.
Speaker 1: We're teasing because it's one of those things that every
Speaker 1: school has their opponent's school making accusing. There are certain
Speaker 1: schools in the SEC that have in the past been
Speaker 1: accused of such things. I am not suggesting that any
Speaker 1: of them are actively doing that now. Okay, disclaimers over
Speaker 1: the NFL, which which actually does pay their players and
Speaker 1: they're supposed to and and it's actually legal. Um uh,
Speaker 1: we've lost control. Um. The NFL has uh is preventing
Speaker 1: its own players from using Twitter and Facebook during the games,
Speaker 1: and referees and referees and you know and even uh
Speaker 1: there are holding the sign that shows you when the
Speaker 1: first Oh no, okay, um the wig on. That guy
Speaker 1: can do it. Actually, that guy's in jail. I think
Speaker 1: he was making bombs. Um. Apparently it is. Uh, it
Speaker 1: is a prohibition during the game, uh ninety minutes before
Speaker 1: game up until the postgame interviews are completed. They can't
Speaker 1: talk about it, right, and even the media have restrictions
Speaker 1: on when they are allowed to send out messages. It's
Speaker 1: usually things like at the end of a quarter they
Speaker 1: can give a score update. So apparently this game is
Speaker 1: played in quarters. Yes, therefore that was played on the field,
Speaker 1: So anyway, is it close quarters? Smart bets? You have
Speaker 1: a player from the Cincinnati Bengals who is not in
Speaker 1: the least bit media savvy and can constantly drawing attention
Speaker 1: to himself. His name's chad Ocho Sinko. Uh, smart bets
Speaker 1: having him pulling out his cell phone and twittering in
Speaker 1: the end zone after a touchdown at least once fines
Speaker 1: be damned. Right, Um, Based on what I know of
Speaker 1: this fellow, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. I just
Speaker 1: want to why not, But for doing something like this,
Speaker 1: I'd be surprised that this phone could survive a football game. Now,
Speaker 1: I guess if it can survive a football game. Give
Speaker 1: that man an advertising contract because there's your ad. Well,
Speaker 1: our phones can withstand a full tackle of my NFL players.
Speaker 1: You know, there you go. They are wearing pads. What. Um.
Speaker 1: In the past, other players have done such things as
Speaker 1: Terrell Owens pulling out a sharpie and signing a football
Speaker 1: and throwing it into the stands. This would be taking
Speaker 1: that a little further. Um. But you know there are
Speaker 1: other there are other organizations, I mean not not everybody
Speaker 1: as as prohibitive as the SEC in the NFL are
Speaker 1: and and we should also stress the NFL has said
Speaker 1: that they want their players to be able to use
Speaker 1: social media. They want that fan interaction the just during
Speaker 1: the game, right they but they encourage their players too
Speaker 1: to have this guy. If they want to have this
Speaker 1: sort of user you know, this fan player interaction, they're
Speaker 1: they're more than welcome to do it, which I think
Speaker 1: is great because as you and I know, I mean,
Speaker 1: even in our field, which has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: sports but has a similar uh feature in the sense of,
Speaker 1: you know, we have people who listen to us, fans
Speaker 1: who listen to us. We like to be able to
Speaker 1: have that kind of interactivity with them, and so it's
Speaker 1: not just a one way street. It's good to that
Speaker 1: they are fostering that with their players, And to me
Speaker 1: it makes sense that you don't, you know, for the
Speaker 1: players anyway, that you don't give away information that could
Speaker 1: potentially affect the outcome of the game. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: I understand the reasoning behind that. And you also want to,
Speaker 1: uh as a team, keep your players focused on the game,
Speaker 1: right right, Sure, you don't want their head to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I hope my five thousand followers like the fact that
Speaker 1: I just, you know, avoided the tackle on that last
Speaker 1: two yards. Oh wait, wait, I just thought of something. Yeah, yeah, Um.
Speaker 1: That's why the NBA team, the Milwaukee Bucks, prohibited Charlie
Speaker 1: Villanueva from tweeting because he was tweeting during the game
Speaker 1: from the bench. Now, then they basically said, yeah, can
Speaker 1: you not do that during the game. The NBA, we're
Speaker 1: talking about different. That's a game called basketball. There's an
Speaker 1: orange ball and you bounce it up and down on
Speaker 1: the floor and when you get to the end of
Speaker 1: the floor, you're supposed to throw it through this little circle,
Speaker 1: which one of the sports has a field goal. That
Speaker 1: would be football. Are you sure that basketball doesn't have
Speaker 1: a field goal. Actually it would be basketball too, got
Speaker 1: your Pilette, but both of them do, yes, So I
Speaker 1: was that was a that was a trap for Pilette
Speaker 1: because I actually know something about basketball. Actually trapped yourself
Speaker 1: because you just proved you just proved that you knew
Speaker 1: something about both sports, damn it. So um yeah, the
Speaker 1: the uh yeah, NBA their policy is essentially that every
Speaker 1: team has can develop its own policy. There's no there's
Speaker 1: no NBA wide policy. And I was unable to see
Speaker 1: anything about major legue baseball. Uh, whether you guys don't
Speaker 1: know how to use a phone, I would like to
Speaker 1: say that he said that and not me. I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm actually have flenty of time if you're sitting, if
Speaker 1: you're on yeah, if you have time to tweet. You know.
Speaker 1: I should also point out I am a huge baseball fan,
Speaker 1: so I'm definitely joking about that. And in hockey you
Speaker 1: would not have time to because you don't have like
Speaker 1: five seconds to rest and then you gotta go and
Speaker 1: hit the ice again. So hockey that should change, right,
Speaker 1: So crushed climbing over wall, Yeah, I mean there would
Speaker 1: be some great tweets from hockey. I think everything would
Speaker 1: end with a so, um but yeah, king up teeth,
Speaker 1: hold on good nice. Yeah. So I'd love to see
Speaker 1: some hockey tweets. That'd be fun too, That would be funny.
Speaker 1: We should make a fake Twitter account for for some
Speaker 1: some fictitious hockey player. Okay, then patent pending, um everything
Speaker 1: every time we make up something new or so yeah,
Speaker 1: So NBA, the policy is left up to each individual team.
Speaker 1: Uh and the going just this is backtracking a little
Speaker 1: bit to the NFL. But whereas I understand that they
Speaker 1: don't want you to to send out any messages that
Speaker 1: could affect the outcome of the game, what I don't
Speaker 1: understand is sending up messages of hey, we're we're twelve
Speaker 1: points up. You know that Again? To me, I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone out there is following folks with the intention of, Hey,
Speaker 1: this way, I don't have to have that that burden
Speaker 1: of watching the sport I love. I can just read
Speaker 1: about it in a hundred forty characters at a time.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, and and this
Speaker 1: really is a um an issue that goes out to
Speaker 1: a lot of other industries and organizations. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: especially considering marketing people who get excited about news that
Speaker 1: that you know, may affect their company. I mean you
Speaker 1: hear about it. Every once in a while, somebody will say, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: we just got chosen to be the so and so,
Speaker 1: and you'll find out that there wasn't an official press
Speaker 1: release going out. Yeah, or we we've got a partnership
Speaker 1: with such and such, or we're going to acquire such
Speaker 1: and such company before it's actually finalized. And I have
Speaker 1: I have the feeling that it's not going to be
Speaker 1: much longer before there are official policies in place for many, many,
Speaker 1: many governmental bodies of legislation that hasn't yet been passed,
Speaker 1: or things that are going on behind closed doors, because
Speaker 1: politicians are starting to tweet a whole lot more than these.
Speaker 1: Once again, we've gotten to the point where the technology
Speaker 1: is outpacing the legal system. I mean, it happens there. No,
Speaker 1: there are no official rules. There's a lot of these
Speaker 1: cases because this stuff is so new, no one's thought, hey,
Speaker 1: how do we regulate this so that it doesn't affect
Speaker 1: us in a negative way. Yeah, Um, let's get back
Speaker 1: to sports. I was gonna want to talk about that
Speaker 1: was the fun reason why we decided to start this podcast. Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the US Open. Oh, golf. That's a
Speaker 1: game in which you hit a ball with a stick,
Speaker 1: go find it and hit it again until you can
Speaker 1: knock get into a little hole. Or did you know that?
Speaker 1: I was wasn't talking about that US Open? But all right, okay,
Speaker 1: that's right, the other US Open. Yeah, I was talking
Speaker 1: about the game you play with some rackets and a
Speaker 1: green fuzzy ball and you hit it over a net.
Speaker 1: I think if it as yellow fuzzy ball. But okay, okay,
Speaker 1: well yellowish, greenish whatever. Um, but hey, you know you
Speaker 1: want to go on with that golf thing. I want
Speaker 1: to hear where this is going. Um, actually, why don't
Speaker 1: you talk about that? I'll see if I can find
Speaker 1: anything on the internet. No, no, no, alright, So so seriously,
Speaker 1: let's just talk about about, um other reasons why you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to use Twitter in sports. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons it would be very difficult to do if you're
Speaker 1: playing tennis. Yeah, well, one of the reasons is that
Speaker 1: you don't The reason for the the US Open administrators
Speaker 1: don't want the tennis players to use Twitter is not
Speaker 1: because it may give someone an unfair advantage, or it
Speaker 1: may give you know, you may find out, oh, my
Speaker 1: opponent tomorrow has apparently got a bum ankle um, I
Speaker 1: should hit things more to his or her right instead
Speaker 1: of left or anything like that. It's more because that
Speaker 1: information might be used by the gambling community to adjust odds,
Speaker 1: and they are very much concerned with their appearance and
Speaker 1: they do not want to look like they are feeding
Speaker 1: into this gambling um community. So it's more of a
Speaker 1: kind of a pr thing. You know, they don't they
Speaker 1: don't want to be thought of as um enabling folks
Speaker 1: to to wage your huge amounts of money on various players.
Speaker 1: And if you were to leave a little information about someone,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe their arm feels a little weird, something
Speaker 1: like that, then suddenly that creates a flurry of activity
Speaker 1: in the gambling community and it looks like you are
Speaker 1: you are sort of endorsing it, I guess, just by
Speaker 1: allowing this information out. So there have been a lot
Speaker 1: of warnings put up at the US Open saying don't
Speaker 1: use Twitter for those kind of reasons. Use Twitter, just
Speaker 1: don't use it to to give information like that, you know,
Speaker 1: use a little critical thinking before you start tweeting, and
Speaker 1: most people would say, hey, this is common sense. Who
Speaker 1: the hell would you know use Twitter to give away
Speaker 1: information that could potentially cause them problems down the line.
Speaker 1: But we see it again and again that people get
Speaker 1: these ideas, like a thought occurs to them and they
Speaker 1: have to put it down in Twitter, like they don't
Speaker 1: stop to saying, hey, maybe I shouldn't share this with
Speaker 1: the entire world before you know, hitting inner, and they
Speaker 1: just go ahead and do it. I mean I've done
Speaker 1: it too. I've sent out messages where I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I should have thought a little before I actually
Speaker 1: wrote that. Yeah, when you when you apply the logic
Speaker 1: of how it might affect, um the odds and gambling
Speaker 1: that that might cause some serious thought among the other leagues,
Speaker 1: certainly are the major leagues and in the other professional sports,
Speaker 1: because um, you know, when you think about that anything,
Speaker 1: you know, a picture could be going back in the
Speaker 1: dugout and saying, you know, and feeling a little stiff,
Speaker 1: hopefully I can work this out. That might you know,
Speaker 1: it's the second hitting all of a sudden that changes
Speaker 1: the complexion of the game. You know, somebody calls back
Speaker 1: to the dugout talks to the manager and goes, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: you know Johnson just twittered that his arms feeling stiff.
Speaker 1: You know. Now you know the guys and the other
Speaker 1: dugout are also reading Twitter, you know. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I have the feeling that it's gonna be there are
Speaker 1: going to be prohibitions on it pretty much, uh, within
Speaker 1: the next year to two years, in pretty much all sports,
Speaker 1: I would guess, just because of that. Yeah, it makes
Speaker 1: sense to me. Gives a competitive advantage and affects the
Speaker 1: gambling odds, you know. Yeah. There. It's funny because it's
Speaker 1: things that you would never really thought about back when
Speaker 1: Twitter first hit the the you know, the public consciousness.
Speaker 1: I imagine that. Uh, it's the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: the founders of Twitter probably never thought it would happen.
Speaker 1: For one thing, it's because people have turned Twitter into
Speaker 1: such a marketing tool, either they're marketing a product or themselves,
Speaker 1: and so with that come a whole host of other
Speaker 1: problems that people just didn't think about. Like, for example, um,
Speaker 1: let's say you're an actor and you're on a movie
Speaker 1: set and you've got a Twitter account, and you send
Speaker 1: out a Twitter message saying I shot this great scene
Speaker 1: with so and so. But the the the so and
Speaker 1: so's presence on the movie was a secret. It was
Speaker 1: supposed to be uh, you know, a treat so that
Speaker 1: people would find out just when they went to see
Speaker 1: the movie, like, oh my gosh, so and so showed
Speaker 1: up in this great cameo and they kept it totally secret. Well, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and now it's a lot harder to keep those secrets.
Speaker 1: It's not just the actors, it's the crew, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's anyone who happens to be working on
Speaker 1: the film set. So you've got this concern now that
Speaker 1: anything that would normally be kept under wraps because I mean,
Speaker 1: they're there are movies out there that are famous, like
Speaker 1: the Air directors who are famous for keeping things as
Speaker 1: secret as possible, destroying script pages, printing it on dark
Speaker 1: paper so you can't make copies. Twitter is a huge
Speaker 1: security breach in that approach. Yeah, and then you have
Speaker 1: you know, stuff like these writers or idiots, I hate
Speaker 1: this script. If they don't fix it, now, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: walk right and I'm sure that the uh, the studio
Speaker 1: people are going to rupture something when they read that.
Speaker 1: You know, then the producers come along go you know,
Speaker 1: what if you guys can't work this out. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: just another example of how our online lives and our
Speaker 1: personal real life lives are just getting more and more intermingled.
Speaker 1: You can't really, you can't really keep the two separate.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's just impossible. I mean, the only
Speaker 1: choice you really have is to avoid creating an online
Speaker 1: part of your life. I mean, I know that we've
Speaker 1: had to worry about things that we post up on
Speaker 1: our social networking sites, just to make sure that you know,
Speaker 1: we don't do anything that would give away company secrets,
Speaker 1: like anything that was intellectual property or anything that was
Speaker 1: you know, not public knowledge. We have to be careful
Speaker 1: about that. Yes, So not that they tell us anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, we pretty much don't know it anyway, But
Speaker 1: if we did know, we wouldn't be able to tell
Speaker 1: about it, yes, I mean, otherwise people would find out
Speaker 1: that the reason why how stuff works dot com and
Speaker 1: so popular has to do with Elvin Magic. Yes well, um,
Speaker 1: or the fact that I'm no longer supposed to send
Speaker 1: out Twitter messages saying things like Josh Clark, host of
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know, likes to dress up as a
Speaker 1: clown and eat kittens. No, I'm not supposed to do that.
Speaker 1: I could say it on the podcast. I'm just not
Speaker 1: supposed to, you know Twitter about Oh good, well, I
Speaker 1: mean as long as there's a clear line. Yeah. Actually
Speaker 1: I was told I can say that on Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: Live too, so you never know what I might pipe up,
Speaker 1: So I got to go ahead. Yeah, live video. That's
Speaker 1: that's not nerve racking at all. Okay, now that we've
Speaker 1: exhausted um like, like we said, we're probably gonna see
Speaker 1: even more regulations in the future as people start to
Speaker 1: figure out what I would think what Twitter's place is
Speaker 1: in the world sports. It kind of takes some of
Speaker 1: the fun out of it, but I understand why they're
Speaker 1: taking there's Yeah, you have to have some accountability. They're
Speaker 1: not just kind of ality on the internet. Who thought it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy, blah blah. So that, I guess wraps that
Speaker 1: conversation up. That brings us to our favorite segment, A
Speaker 1: listener man. Uh huh. Today's listening mail comes from Alex.
Speaker 1: Alex says, Hey, guys, I was listening to your video
Speaker 1: game podcast and noticed that you said the PlayStation three
Speaker 1: was not backwards compatible, but in fact, the first sixty
Speaker 1: gigabyte models were backwards compatible. I love the podcast, guys,
Speaker 1: keep up the good work, Alex. You we're not the
Speaker 1: only person to write in about this. Actually, we've got
Speaker 1: several emails and it is true. The sixty gigabyte model
Speaker 1: of the PlayStation three was backwards compatible. However it is
Speaker 1: no longer. It is no longer on the market. You
Speaker 1: can find used ones. I mean actually they go for
Speaker 1: quite a bit in some cases because of the that
Speaker 1: backwards compatibility, you know, all right, which is funny because
Speaker 1: they just came out with the PS three slim right,
Speaker 1: so you can you can buy, you can, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can buy. You can buy a new PS three sometimes
Speaker 1: for less money than you would be able to buy
Speaker 1: a used one, because the new ones do not have
Speaker 1: backwards compatibility, and those, of course are the only ones
Speaker 1: that are available in stores. So that's why we talked
Speaker 1: about the lack of backwards compatibility. We were really talking
Speaker 1: about the consoles that were available on the market at
Speaker 1: that time. It's funny because immediately after we record that podcast,
Speaker 1: Microsoft came out with its announcement of cutting prices and
Speaker 1: getting rid of one of the models of Xbox. So
Speaker 1: it just shows you that as soon as you finish
Speaker 1: a podcast, someone's gonna change something to make it obsolete. Yes,
Speaker 1: and uh, there's just in there's no more Twitter. Thanks
Speaker 1: very much. You say there's just in no more sports. Oh,
Speaker 1: that would have been better Twitter. I can live Twitter,
Speaker 1: I can live with I I need Twitter. I can't
Speaker 1: sports gone, that's I mean, I'm miss uh you know, Oh,
Speaker 1: and curling, you know, the really competitive sports actually never Okay,
Speaker 1: I like curling. I think it's kind of cool. We're
Speaker 1: really going down around you know, you could just sort
Speaker 1: of be yourself and let's just take this conversation offline, Shelley,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure our listeners don't want to hear it, okay,
Speaker 1: but if you do want to hear it, you can
Speaker 1: write us at tech stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: We'll tell you all about our conversation about curling. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you have any other comments, source questions or suggestions
Speaker 1: in those as well. And if you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about Twitter and sports, you can find that at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Did you have something else
Speaker 1: you want to ask? Yes? And if you would like
Speaker 1: to follow Jonathan on Twitter, Yes, he's John Strickland's j
Speaker 1: O N. S. T R I C K L A
Speaker 1: N T. And if you like to follow me, I
Speaker 1: am tech stuff Chris Um, which is you know, pretty
Speaker 1: easy to spell. H one's not so difficult, but yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead, join us, join us, all right, We'll looking
Speaker 1: forward to it. Yeah, thanks very much for listening. We
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com and be sure to check out the new
Speaker 1: tech stuff blog now on the house Stuff Works homepage,
Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you