The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hey, welcome to the talk show.

00:00:01 ◼   ► I have a very special episode with two first time guests, two of the people who

00:00:06 ◼   ► have started the new photo sharing site, Glass.

00:00:09 ◼   ► I have Tom Watson and Daniel Agee.

00:00:12 ◼   ► And before I get to them, I want to tell you about our first sponsor,

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00:01:59 ◼   ► Now onto the show with welcome Tom Watson and Daniel Agee.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Say hello.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Great to be here.

00:02:08 ◼   ► Nice to-- I was listening to your intro and thinking, man,

00:02:12 ◼   ► I guess we need to get on Squarespace.

00:02:14 ◼   ► That's something we need to do, apparently.

00:02:16 ◼   ► So you just have so much enthusiasm for it.

00:02:18 ◼   ► We need member areas.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:23 ◼   ► For those who don't know, I linked to Glass back in August

00:02:28 ◼   ► when you guys launched.

00:02:29 ◼   ► I believe that's--

00:02:30 ◼   ► I think that's right when you launched publicly.

00:02:32 ◼   ► But tell people--

00:02:33 ◼   ► It was, yeah.

00:02:34 ◼   ► And the website, let's just get it out of the way for people who are curious

00:02:37 ◼   ► and want to start looking at it as we talk,

00:02:39 ◼   ► is at glass.photo, which is one of the coolest

00:02:44 ◼   ► ways of using these new modern TLDs for domains.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Pretty good URL.

00:02:51 ◼   ► Tell people what Glass is.

00:02:52 ◼   ► I'll start.

00:02:53 ◼   ► Why not?

00:02:53 ◼   ► So Glass is a photo sharing app for photography enthusiasts.

00:02:57 ◼   ► It's simple.

00:02:58 ◼   ► It's great.

00:02:59 ◼   ► It's straightforward.

00:03:00 ◼   ► And it's a member-driven community.

00:03:02 ◼   ► So instead of people signing up for a product

00:03:06 ◼   ► and just becoming the product through whatever means, ads, whatnot,

00:03:11 ◼   ► you just sign up.

00:03:12 ◼   ► You have a monthly membership fee.

00:03:15 ◼   ► And you get to be part of a wonderful photography community.

00:03:17 ◼   ► It's pretty straightforward.

00:03:19 ◼   ► It seems novel in 2022.

00:03:23 ◼   ► But to us, it seems very obvious and straightforward.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I don't think there's much more to it than that.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Daniel, maybe you have a fancier marketing spin on that one.

00:03:31 ◼   ► But I think it's really as simple as that.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Do you remember Flickr back in the day?

00:03:35 ◼   ► What if you paid for it?

00:03:36 ◼   ► It didn't get sold to Yahoo.

00:03:38 ◼   ► And there were users actively using it and a team behind it actively

00:03:44 ◼   ► developing it and increasing its use.

00:03:48 ◼   ► The features are coming out every month instead of every three years.

00:03:52 ◼   ► And we don't track anything at all.

00:03:55 ◼   ► As the head of marketing for Glass, that makes my job very hard.

00:03:59 ◼   ► I hate it.

00:04:00 ◼   ► But it's how things should be.

00:04:02 ◼   ► It's not a novel concept to just pay money for a service.

00:04:07 ◼   ► And yet here we are, 2022, paying for a service.

00:04:12 ◼   ► I know it almost sounds trite to describe Glass even more basically.

00:04:20 ◼   ► But I think it's important and fascinating to me.

00:04:25 ◼   ► If you have a Glass account--

00:04:27 ◼   ► I do-- @Gruber on Glass.

00:04:29 ◼   ► And when I decide to add a photo, I just pick a photo.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I post a photo.

00:04:35 ◼   ► I can write the first caption to describe what it is.

00:04:39 ◼   ► And then I post it.

00:04:40 ◼   ► And then for people who have chosen other fellow Glass users who

00:04:45 ◼   ► have chosen to follow me, they get on their first tab of their Glass app,

00:04:51 ◼   ► they get a chronological feed of the photos posted

00:04:55 ◼   ► by the people whom they choose to follow.

00:04:59 ◼   ► And there are other features.

00:05:02 ◼   ► But at a very high level, that's it.

00:05:05 ◼   ► What's going to pop into people's minds when I describe that,

00:05:07 ◼   ► they're going to say, that sounds like the original Instagram.

00:05:11 ◼   ► Instagram, it's the elephant in the room when we talk about Glass.

00:05:15 ◼   ► You can't not talk about Instagram, or at least Instagram of 2011.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, we can talk at length about it.

00:05:25 ◼   ► Daniel would love to talk about Instagram more.

00:05:28 ◼   ► I mean, I think we--

00:05:31 ◼   ► when I set out to do Glass, I've been talking to Daniel about Glass

00:05:35 ◼   ► since 2013, is that right, Daniel?

00:05:39 ◼   ► I'm trying to--

00:05:40 ◼   ► Yeah, it's been almost nine years this April.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:44 ◼   ► And I was working at Facebook when we bought Glass.

00:05:48 ◼   ► When I was there, we Facebook bought Glass.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Or not Glass, sorry.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Instagram.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Wow, that was just terrible.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Yeah, when they bought Instagram.

00:05:54 ◼   ► Because that would be a terrible thing.

00:05:55 ◼   ► I do not want to get bought by anyone, to be clear.

00:05:58 ◼   ► But I was watching that and thinking, wow, I remember what happened with Flickr.

00:06:02 ◼   ► And what would become--

00:06:06 ◼   ► like what Instagram would become.

00:06:07 ◼   ► And I just didn't want to see that happen.

00:06:10 ◼   ► But it was inevitable.

00:06:10 ◼   ► So I was like, well, how do we make something else?

00:06:12 ◼   ► What could be done?

00:06:13 ◼   ► And so in 2013, I started--

00:06:16 ◼   ► I'm a product designer by trade.

00:06:18 ◼   ► And so I was like, I started making mocks and comps of different ways

00:06:22 ◼   ► to do something really interesting.

00:06:26 ◼   ► And inevitably, things take time.

00:06:28 ◼   ► And I didn't really get around to it, didn't have the right co-founder,

00:06:30 ◼   ► until I found Staphon, who's not on this.

00:06:33 ◼   ► But he's our-- the engineering co-founder does all the back end work for Glass.

00:06:37 ◼   ► And it just-- he was excited about it.

00:06:40 ◼   ► And Daniel obviously wanted to get involved.

00:06:42 ◼   ► But as like head of marketing community, we needed to build the thing first.

00:06:47 ◼   ► And it just kind of spiraled from there.

00:06:49 ◼   ► And yeah, sure, there's Instagram.

00:06:50 ◼   ► And it's a whole thing.

00:06:52 ◼   ► But maybe yet, I guess what you're saying, John, when you were talking about it,

00:06:55 ◼   ► is that Instagram of 2011, 2012.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And yes, there's definitely some interest there.

00:07:00 ◼   ► But there's the community that we want to create.

00:07:03 ◼   ► And that's like Flickr circa 2007, 2008 maybe,

00:07:10 ◼   ► where we felt like there was really a golden age of photographers coming

00:07:14 ◼   ► together and really being positive towards each other in their work online.

00:07:19 ◼   ► And we felt like we needed to do a different model with it.

00:07:22 ◼   ► And that model had to be not taking on venture capital,

00:07:26 ◼   ► not trying to go to the moon, but really just building an indie product that is

00:07:31 ◼   ► focused on this one community and to build it as big as we can to support

00:07:36 ◼   ► the efforts that we want to do.

00:07:38 ◼   ► Yeah, photographers have had a pretty raw deal on the internet.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Multiple times they have been the driving creative factor behind a platform.

00:07:47 ◼   ► And then they scale that platform because of their work.

00:07:51 ◼   ► And then that platform pivots to video or to full screen video

00:07:56 ◼   ► or to become a shopping app or to track every single thing you do across the internet

00:08:01 ◼   ► or to give teens eating disorders or to--

00:08:03 ◼   ► that's not what photographers want.

00:08:05 ◼   ► That's not what users want.

00:08:07 ◼   ► That's not what people want.

00:08:08 ◼   ► We just want to be able to connect with people we care about

00:08:12 ◼   ► and whose work inspires us on the internet.

00:08:14 ◼   ► And that shouldn't be this hard in 2022.

00:08:19 ◼   ► The path for Instagram, from what it originally was,

00:08:24 ◼   ► which was a lot like the description of Glass today, where you just--

00:08:28 ◼   ► you as a user pick photos, still photos to share.

00:08:32 ◼   ► And the people who choose to follow you see them in chronological order.

00:08:36 ◼   ► And you yourself see in your feed the photos

00:08:40 ◼   ► in chronological order of the people you chose to follow.

00:08:44 ◼   ► The path from there to what Instagram is today,

00:08:48 ◼   ► or even within just a few years of what it became--

00:08:55 ◼   ► I've been critical.

00:08:56 ◼   ► I think I'm pretty well known at this time as a pretty vocal critic

00:09:00 ◼   ► of Facebook for a lot of reasons.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Just a little bit, John.

00:09:03 ◼   ► Just a tiny bit.

00:09:04 ◼   ► But I'm going to try to be a little diplomatic here.

00:09:07 ◼   ► Because in some ways, I'm almost sympathetic to--

00:09:14 ◼   ► not necessarily-- I'm not going to quite say inevitable,

00:09:16 ◼   ► because there's always choices, and that's too much of an excuse.

00:09:19 ◼   ► But given that Instagram was VC-driven and had raised money

00:09:26 ◼   ► and then chose to sell to Facebook, which famously--

00:09:30 ◼   ► I forget exactly what year they sold.

00:09:32 ◼   ► Was it 2013 or thereabouts?

00:09:35 ◼   ► It was 2012.

00:09:36 ◼   ► 2012.

00:09:37 ◼   ► It's 2012.

00:09:38 ◼   ► Which was, in hindsight, very early in Instagram's life overall.

00:09:44 ◼   ► But they grew quickly.

00:09:46 ◼   ► They sold for a billion dollars.

00:09:48 ◼   ► And it's almost like the Dr. Evil joke in Austin Powers,

00:09:54 ◼   ► where Dr. Evil, who's been frozen for 30 years,

00:09:59 ◼   ► comes up with a mastermind plan to take over the world

00:10:04 ◼   ► and tells the leaders of the world that he wants $1 million.

00:10:09 ◼   ► And everybody laughs, and he's what?

00:10:11 ◼   ► And his henchmen have to tell him that that's just not that much money

00:10:15 ◼   ► anymore, because it was--

00:10:18 ◼   ► the consensus was an awful lot of pundits looked at Facebook

00:10:24 ◼   ► buying Instagram for $1 billion as the height of folly.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And in hindsight now, it is seen as one of the great acquisition

00:10:34 ◼   ► bargains of all time, right?

00:10:37 ◼   ► Like, whatever Instagram--

00:10:38 ◼   ► It ranks right up there with YouTube.

00:10:40 ◼   ► It's right up there with YouTube.

00:10:41 ◼   ► YouTube or Apple buying Next, which

00:10:44 ◼   ► is different, because it was more of a cult.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:10:47 ◼   ► It's up there as a famously prescient acquisition.

00:10:50 ◼   ► When they bought WhatsApp a few years later,

00:10:53 ◼   ► I think it was $50 billion.

00:10:55 ◼   ► And I don't know if WhatsApp is worth more than Instagram,

00:10:59 ◼   ► but it certainly isn't worth 50 times more.

00:11:02 ◼   ► And it just shows--

00:11:03 ◼   ► it's just the changing times.

00:11:05 ◼   ► But these are crazy numbers, right?

00:11:07 ◼   ► Like, I'm not-- as a normal person, I just don't even get $50 billion.

00:11:14 ◼   ► It's mind-boggling.

00:11:15 ◼   ► You just lose track of how much money that is.

00:11:18 ◼   ► But given it-- to me, it's almost inevitable

00:11:22 ◼   ► that given the sums of money that are involved

00:11:24 ◼   ► and the intentions that Facebook might have had,

00:11:27 ◼   ► even if in some alternate universe,

00:11:30 ◼   ► Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion

00:11:33 ◼   ► and in the subsequent years had guided it in a way

00:11:38 ◼   ► that, for lack of a better focus group, the three of us

00:11:42 ◼   ► would have found more appealing, it still would have gone somewhat

00:11:46 ◼   ► in this direction.

00:11:47 ◼   ► I think it was inevitable for Facebook to steer it in a way

00:11:52 ◼   ► where engagement was a higher priority

00:11:56 ◼   ► than other positive descriptions of Instagram, of your--

00:12:02 ◼   ► do you agree or disagree?

00:12:04 ◼   ► I agree in a lot of ways.

00:12:06 ◼   ► I think Facebook's focus is entirely on growth.

00:12:10 ◼   ► Like, it needs to grow.

00:12:11 ◼   ► It's all about-- it's venture capital, growth at all cost,

00:12:15 ◼   ► expansion.

00:12:16 ◼   ► That's, like, incredibly important to its business

00:12:20 ◼   ► and its model.

00:12:20 ◼   ► And that's why it's focused on--

00:12:23 ◼   ► it's shifting its-- every product decision gets focused

00:12:27 ◼   ► through that lens.

00:12:28 ◼   ► And that involves engagement.

00:12:29 ◼   ► You know, right now, it's focused heavily

00:12:31 ◼   ► on YouTube and TikTok, because that's where the growth is.

00:12:34 ◼   ► And it sees those as competitors.

00:12:36 ◼   ► And so they need to focus their efforts on that,

00:12:39 ◼   ► and not necessarily on the photographers that started it,

00:12:42 ◼   ► for example.

00:12:43 ◼   ► That's not a critical group anymore.

00:12:47 ◼   ► I mean, the photos are great, and they want to share them.

00:12:51 ◼   ► But now video is more engaging, and TikTok's algorithms

00:12:54 ◼   ► are more engaging.

00:12:55 ◼   ► And so they need to focus that direction.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And with Glass, we needed to focus

00:13:01 ◼   ► on a different direction, which just so happened

00:13:04 ◼   ► to be a neglected group of people.

00:13:05 ◼   ► And they're very unhappy with Instagram, which is great.

00:13:08 ◼   ► It's great for us, because there's

00:13:10 ◼   ► an audience that wants to come check us out and see

00:13:12 ◼   ► what we're up to.

00:13:13 ◼   ► But I think that's where the lens is.

00:13:15 ◼   ► I mean, Daniel, wouldn't you agree?

00:13:19 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

00:13:19 ◼   ► I think--

00:13:20 ◼   ► [INTERPOSING VOICES]

00:13:22 ◼   ► I feel bad talking about Instagram in this way,

00:13:24 ◼   ► when what we're really talking about

00:13:26 ◼   ► is how we funded this version of the internet.

00:13:29 ◼   ► Like, the wonderful, beautiful internet

00:13:34 ◼   ► doesn't really exist anymore.

00:13:35 ◼   ► And when it does, it's hard to come by.

00:13:38 ◼   ► Like, it's hard to find a newsletter.

00:13:40 ◼   ► And you can track it back to Google killing Google Reader.

00:13:44 ◼   ► You can track it back to Facebook harvesting data,

00:13:48 ◼   ► lying to newsrooms, and having--

00:13:54 ◼   ► like, inflating their video numbers so everyone pivoted

00:13:56 ◼   ► to a thing that didn't exist.

00:13:59 ◼   ► And we had mass layoffs.

00:14:01 ◼   ► You can point it to Sinclair buying up

00:14:05 ◼   ► every single newspaper and TV station in America.

00:14:09 ◼   ► Like, there are so many decisions

00:14:11 ◼   ► that were made along the way that

00:14:12 ◼   ► has made funding something on the internet pretty terrible.

00:14:17 ◼   ► Like, it requires you selling a big piece of your company

00:14:21 ◼   ► to people that just want you to grow, grow, grow,

00:14:23 ◼   ► want your data so they can sell it

00:14:25 ◼   ► to their other investments.

00:14:26 ◼   ► Like, the onslaught of information

00:14:31 ◼   ► on how to build a company for a founder

00:14:33 ◼   ► is pretty dire right now, right?

00:14:36 ◼   ► And the people that you are building for

00:14:38 ◼   ► end up being your investors and not

00:14:40 ◼   ► the people who use your product, not your members,

00:14:42 ◼   ► not your community.

00:14:44 ◼   ► And you just lose so much soul and joy

00:14:49 ◼   ► on what the internet used to be.

00:14:51 ◼   ► And I feel like the Simpsons old man yells at Cloud

00:14:56 ◼   ► in my mid-early 30s.

00:15:00 ◼   ► But like, god, I miss the old internet so much.

00:15:03 ◼   ► And so far, the only places that I've seen it easily replicated

00:15:08 ◼   ► is in paid communities.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Because when you're paying to be a part of something,

00:15:14 ◼   ► you care more, right?

00:15:15 ◼   ► Like, we've been around just over six months now.

00:15:19 ◼   ► We launched in the middle of August.

00:15:22 ◼   ► So we're at six and a half months.

00:15:24 ◼   ► In that six and a half months, we've

00:15:25 ◼   ► had to remove three spam accounts and one

00:15:31 ◼   ► abusive comment on Glass, right?

00:15:34 ◼   ► Like, we have thousands and thousands of users.

00:15:37 ◼   ► We have thousands and thousands of posts.

00:15:39 ◼   ► We have tens of thousands of comments.

00:15:41 ◼   ► And we've had to remove a handful.

00:15:43 ◼   ► Like, I can still count on both hands how many posts or comments

00:15:48 ◼   ► we've had to remove.

00:15:50 ◼   ► And like, that's huge.

00:15:51 ◼   ► That is like such a mind-boggling number to me

00:15:57 ◼   ► that it has stayed this small.

00:15:58 ◼   ► And it's because we have things like a community

00:16:01 ◼   ► code of conduct.

00:16:01 ◼   ► We have a very direct, no hate speech and no white supremacy

00:16:09 ◼   ► on the platform.

00:16:11 ◼   ► We have a paid service.

00:16:13 ◼   ► We use Apple ID only.

00:16:14 ◼   ► So that means it's your name.

00:16:16 ◼   ► And if you get banned, you can't just

00:16:18 ◼   ► go create another Apple ID that's tied to your name

00:16:20 ◼   ► and come on in.

00:16:22 ◼   ► And those things matter.

00:16:25 ◼   ► It just pays off.

00:16:26 ◼   ► And so there's-- you find joy like that

00:16:29 ◼   ► when you're subscribing to certain people's sub stacks.

00:16:32 ◼   ► And you can find a community in the discussion threads

00:16:35 ◼   ► that people write on sub stack.

00:16:37 ◼   ► You can find it in weird little newsletters,

00:16:39 ◼   ► weird little internet.

00:16:40 ◼   ► But it's so hard to find that sense of joy

00:16:44 ◼   ► because engagement algorithms are fueled by the opposite.

00:16:48 ◼   ► They're fueled by anger and rage and otherism and racism.

00:16:53 ◼   ► And then we just end up here.

00:16:57 ◼   ► God, that's sad.

00:17:00 ◼   ► One of my obsessions with everything is--

00:17:04 ◼   ► it's been this way.

00:17:05 ◼   ► It's just the way my brain is wired.

00:17:06 ◼   ► But I've always been sort of obsessed with form, especially

00:17:11 ◼   ► of media.

00:17:13 ◼   ► And I think it's easy to get lost.

00:17:17 ◼   ► And you just sort of stop thinking about it

00:17:21 ◼   ► because you get used to it.

00:17:22 ◼   ► And it's one of those many ways that the whole internet getting

00:17:27 ◼   ► worse has been a slow boiling frog thing.

00:17:30 ◼   ► And now we're all just like, well,

00:17:32 ◼   ► it's fine that we're sitting in boiling water.

00:17:34 ◼   ► But it's a fundamental difference with--

00:17:38 ◼   ► and people complain endlessly about certainly Instagram,

00:17:43 ◼   ► Twitter, just about anything going away

00:17:46 ◼   ► from chronological feeds to algorithm-generated feeds.

00:17:52 ◼   ► And it's like people say that.

00:17:55 ◼   ► And you know what they mean.

00:17:57 ◼   ► And it's just sort of-- it comes across as sort of, well,

00:18:00 ◼   ► wah wah, you're old.

00:18:02 ◼   ► If you're talking about chronological feeds,

00:18:04 ◼   ► you're old and you're complaining

00:18:05 ◼   ► about a world that's passed us by.

00:18:08 ◼   ► But if you stop and pause and think about it, to me,

00:18:11 ◼   ► as an experience, thinking about it

00:18:13 ◼   ► as a person who's used these things,

00:18:15 ◼   ► the experience of using something

00:18:18 ◼   ► with a chronological feed versus an infinite feed generated

00:18:22 ◼   ► by algorithms is way more profound than you would think,

00:18:30 ◼   ► given how much people talk about it.

00:18:32 ◼   ► Because to me, the defining characteristic

00:18:35 ◼   ► of a chronological feed for something like a photo sharing

00:18:40 ◼   ► site like Glass is now--

00:18:42 ◼   ► and I think about Instagram all the time

00:18:45 ◼   ► while I'm using Glass for this reason, which is that I think,

00:18:49 ◼   ► hey, let me check Glass today.

00:18:50 ◼   ► And I open the app, and I go to my feed, and new photos come in,

00:18:55 ◼   ► and I start looking at them.

00:18:57 ◼   ► And I scroll down, and I don't follow--

00:18:59 ◼   ► I don't know, I'm not quite sure how many people I follow,

00:19:01 ◼   ► but it's probably a few dozen.

00:19:04 ◼   ► It's not many.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And then within a very short amount of time,

00:19:08 ◼   ► I get to one from yesterday or the day before,

00:19:12 ◼   ► a photo that I had seen before.

00:19:15 ◼   ► And as soon as I recognize it, oh, I've

00:19:17 ◼   ► seen that one from so-and-so.

00:19:19 ◼   ► Then I know with certainty I'm caught up.

00:19:24 ◼   ► That's it.

00:19:25 ◼   ► I'm done.

00:19:25 ◼   ► And I can leave Glass and wait to come back in a day or two

00:19:31 ◼   ► when I'm interested in knowing if there's no photos.

00:19:34 ◼   ► And my mind is--

00:19:37 ◼   ► it's that feeling of checking an item off a checklist.

00:19:43 ◼   ► It's satisfying to so many people.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Even if you've got four errands to run,

00:19:48 ◼   ► I find it so satisfying to write them down, one, two, three,

00:19:51 ◼   ► four, and go out.

00:19:53 ◼   ► And as I'm doing them, cross them off.

00:19:56 ◼   ► And it's like with an infinite feed, you never catch up.

00:20:01 ◼   ► And I think it's like the human mind is just not hooked up

00:20:06 ◼   ► to deal with that.

00:20:06 ◼   ► It is a very strange thing that you now never

00:20:11 ◼   ► get to the end of your Instagram or Twitter feed.

00:20:14 ◼   ► There's never an end.

00:20:15 ◼   ► No matter how far you scroll, more things load.

00:20:19 ◼   ► And I honestly think that the infinite scroll

00:20:23 ◼   ► is more pernicious to the human psyche than we talk about.

00:20:31 ◼   ► I'm curious what you guys think about that.

00:20:33 ◼   ► How do you feel?

00:20:34 ◼   ► Well, I mean, going back to opening up

00:20:37 ◼   ► Glass versus Instagram, how do you feel when you're doing it?

00:20:42 ◼   ► One of the things that Tom spent a lot of time on

00:20:45 ◼   ► was the main feed design.

00:20:47 ◼   ► We don't have any names.

00:20:49 ◼   ► Everything's hidden behind gestures.

00:20:51 ◼   ► You have to tap in to see more information and to comment.

00:20:54 ◼   ► You have to tap in to use our version of a Like button.

00:20:58 ◼   ► So to use the product, you have to be a little bit more

00:21:02 ◼   ► intentional than you normally would when you're just

00:21:04 ◼   ► scrolling, double tapping, scrolling, double tapping,

00:21:06 ◼   ► scrolling forever until you're dead.

00:21:10 ◼   ► So how does that feel for you?

00:21:12 ◼   ► How does your brain feel as you're checking off that list

00:21:15 ◼   ► and in the actual activity?

00:21:17 ◼   ► Because that's a big thing.

00:21:18 ◼   ► How you feel when you're using Glass is so notably, for me,

00:21:23 ◼   ► calmer.

00:21:25 ◼   ► It's calmer.

00:21:26 ◼   ► It feels better.

00:21:27 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like your brain is on fire,

00:21:29 ◼   ► like opening up Twitter or Instagram does.

00:21:31 ◼   ► There's just nice things looking at you.

00:21:36 ◼   ► I'm not trying to be sold a linen jacket

00:21:39 ◼   ► or a piece of furniture or some faceless thing coming

00:21:43 ◼   ► from an Amazon store.

00:21:45 ◼   ► I'm just enjoying a photo.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Tom?

00:21:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I was going to jump in and say,

00:21:52 ◼   ► there's a lot of that.

00:21:52 ◼   ► I mean, the chronological feed, I was at Facebook when--

00:21:58 ◼   ► it's funny-- Adam Mosseri, who's now the head of Instagram,

00:22:01 ◼   ► was working on the--

00:22:04 ◼   ► was called Most Recent and Picked For You,

00:22:07 ◼   ► I believe is what it was.

00:22:08 ◼   ► And there was a switch between it and the design

00:22:11 ◼   ► to tie yourself in knots to try to have the default be

00:22:16 ◼   ► the algorithmic feed, but still allow people

00:22:18 ◼   ► to get to that chronological feed.

00:22:19 ◼   ► The issue is it's just less engaging.

00:22:22 ◼   ► And the nice part about having a different set of priorities

00:22:25 ◼   ► or Glass is that we don't have to have you always on it hooked

00:22:31 ◼   ► and constantly coming back to this infinite feed.

00:22:35 ◼   ► But we just want you to feel good.

00:22:37 ◼   ► We want you to--

00:22:38 ◼   ► it's not about getting eyes for advertisers.

00:22:41 ◼   ► It's about making you feel good about the product

00:22:44 ◼   ► and then listening to our customers and our members

00:22:47 ◼   ► and then doing and building a better product for them.

00:22:50 ◼   ► And it took a long time to get to this point

00:22:52 ◼   ► because we launched six months ago,

00:22:55 ◼   ► but we've been working on Glass since 2019.

00:22:58 ◼   ► It was the end of 2019.

00:22:59 ◼   ► It's almost-- I almost want to call it like a pandemic app

00:23:02 ◼   ► because we started kind of more in earnest

00:23:05 ◼   ► as the pandemic happened.

00:23:07 ◼   ► But we've just been working on it those nights and weekends

00:23:09 ◼   ► and on the side until we could really get to this point.

00:23:12 ◼   ► And it just-- it gives us that freedom to do these things

00:23:16 ◼   ► and to have a different set of priorities.

00:23:18 ◼   ► And it lets us prioritize things like the algorithmic feed.

00:23:21 ◼   ► It lets us prioritize your photos, like higher resolution,

00:23:24 ◼   ► better quality photos, because we have the membership.

00:23:29 ◼   ► We can have a feed that's calm like that.

00:23:31 ◼   ► And we can-- so much of--

00:23:34 ◼   ► I think a member posted on Twitter

00:23:37 ◼   ► like a comparison between the Instagram photo and then

00:23:41 ◼   ► a Glass, what it looks like on Glass.

00:23:43 ◼   ► And I commented like, oh, well, there's not--

00:23:45 ◼   ► there's not room for all these engaging buttons.

00:23:47 ◼   ► And they need those buttons.

00:23:48 ◼   ► And they need the light counts.

00:23:50 ◼   ► They need all that stuff in order to keep the system going.

00:23:53 ◼   ► I've worked on these platforms for many years.

00:23:57 ◼   ► After Facebook, I went to Pinterest.

00:23:59 ◼   ► And it's-- you see these--

00:24:02 ◼   ► I know that the tension is there.

00:24:03 ◼   ► I mean, people want to make great products

00:24:05 ◼   ► with these companies.

00:24:06 ◼   ► It's not that.

00:24:07 ◼   ► It's just the way the model works

00:24:08 ◼   ► and the way the business works.

00:24:10 ◼   ► But you need to have those things.

00:24:11 ◼   ► And so trying something with a different business model

00:24:13 ◼   ► allows us the freedom to do these things, which have

00:24:16 ◼   ► a different set of priorities.

00:24:17 ◼   ► Just to go back to the infinite feed, right?

00:24:24 ◼   ► And in traditional media, if it's print, it's impossible,

00:24:29 ◼   ► right?

00:24:30 ◼   ► It's literally physically impossible to buy

00:24:33 ◼   ► a magazine that never ends, right?

00:24:35 ◼   ► So if you-- let's say you're hopping on a train

00:24:37 ◼   ► to take a 90-minute ride from Philly to New York.

00:24:41 ◼   ► And I buy a magazine for the trip.

00:24:45 ◼   ► I can flip through the magazine.

00:24:47 ◼   ► And as I flip through page by page,

00:24:49 ◼   ► I spot articles I might want to read and maybe ads

00:24:54 ◼   ► that I want to look at as I flip through.

00:24:56 ◼   ► And then I get to the end of the magazine.

00:24:58 ◼   ► And I know with certainty I'm done.

00:25:00 ◼   ► And I can throw the magazine away.

00:25:04 ◼   ► And that's it.

00:25:05 ◼   ► TV was sort of the first infinite feed, especially

00:25:08 ◼   ► cable.

00:25:09 ◼   ► And it's like we can talk about the way

00:25:12 ◼   ► that, at least when I was young, how odd it sounds in hindsight

00:25:17 ◼   ► that most people only had like 10 channels.

00:25:22 ◼   ► And they would sign off at 1 in the morning

00:25:26 ◼   ► and play the national anthem.

00:25:27 ◼   ► And then they'd just broadcast static

00:25:29 ◼   ► until they started up with the local news at 6 in the morning

00:25:32 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:25:34 ◼   ► But cable runs 24 hours a day.

00:25:37 ◼   ► And when you think about the fact

00:25:40 ◼   ► that what they really want after you've watched

00:25:44 ◼   ► some show on CNN or any channel at 8 o'clock PM and at 830,

00:25:51 ◼   ► that show is over, the way they deal

00:25:54 ◼   ► with the transition to the next show

00:25:55 ◼   ► is always something to sort of keep you watching.

00:26:00 ◼   ► The hope is we'll give you some sort of--

00:26:03 ◼   ► if it's like live talking heads on a sports or news channel,

00:26:06 ◼   ► the two hosts talk to each other briefly as they hand off

00:26:10 ◼   ► from one show to another.

00:26:11 ◼   ► And if you think about are the programmers and producers

00:26:15 ◼   ► and directors of these shows trying

00:26:17 ◼   ► to get people who tuned in to the 8 o'clock show

00:26:19 ◼   ► to keep watching, please, please, please

00:26:21 ◼   ► watch the 830 show.

00:26:22 ◼   ► And then at 9 o'clock, they're going

00:26:23 ◼   ► to do the same thing for the next show.

00:26:25 ◼   ► TV is sort of an infinite feed.

00:26:28 ◼   ► And everybody knows other people who are--

00:26:32 ◼   ► they just like to have TV on in the background.

00:26:35 ◼   ► I'm the opposite.

00:26:36 ◼   ► I can't concentrate with the TV on at all.

00:26:40 ◼   ► But I get it.

00:26:41 ◼   ► Some people just like the background noise.

00:26:43 ◼   ► Everybody knows somebody in their family

00:26:44 ◼   ► who just leaves their favorite TV news channel

00:26:47 ◼   ► on in the background all day long.

00:26:51 ◼   ► But it's also limited in a way that the internet isn't,

00:26:56 ◼   ► where it's such a passive medium.

00:27:00 ◼   ► In Marshall McLuhan's famous words, TV is--

00:27:02 ◼   ► I think he describes it as cool, not warm,

00:27:05 ◼   ► because everybody sort of zombies out.

00:27:07 ◼   ► Whereas social media, you drive it.

00:27:09 ◼   ► You're the one whose thumb is on the screen doing the scrolling.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Nobody talks about doom watching TV.

00:27:20 ◼   ► It's doom scrolling Twitter and Instagram

00:27:23 ◼   ► and et cetera when things are bad.

00:27:26 ◼   ► And it all comes down to the limiting issue.

00:27:30 ◼   ► And it's obvious, but I really think it's worth delving into.

00:27:35 ◼   ► That the commodity that everybody is fighting over

00:27:39 ◼   ► and has long been fighting over because it's clearly limited

00:27:44 ◼   ► is human attention in the aggregate.

00:27:49 ◼   ► And you wind up with two different extremes.

00:27:53 ◼   ► And they're so different, I think,

00:27:56 ◼   ► where Instagram at this point is clearly

00:27:59 ◼   ► trying to take up absolutely as much of each user's time

00:28:04 ◼   ► each day as possible.

00:28:06 ◼   ► Keep them looking at Instagram for as long as they can

00:28:11 ◼   ► with the most interactions, likes on photos and comments.

00:28:15 ◼   ► And as Tom, I believe, just said, all the various buttons

00:28:21 ◼   ► underneath.

00:28:22 ◼   ► A lot of buttons.

00:28:23 ◼   ► A lot of buttons.

00:28:24 ◼   ► And watch some stories.

00:28:27 ◼   ► And please now, please, please, oh my god, watch some reels.

00:28:31 ◼   ► Can we pay you to make a reel?

00:28:34 ◼   ► And the opposite with something like Glass--

00:28:37 ◼   ► and again, it's literally the format

00:28:40 ◼   ► of my site, Daring Fireball, which

00:28:42 ◼   ► is chronologically ordered.

00:28:44 ◼   ► And if you read it either by RSS or by visiting

00:28:48 ◼   ► daringfireball.net's home page on the internet,

00:28:52 ◼   ► you can start scrolling down.

00:28:54 ◼   ► And when you first encounter a post

00:28:56 ◼   ► that you remember having read already, you know you're done.

00:28:59 ◼   ► There's nothing else there.

00:29:00 ◼   ► I don't put anything else there to say more like this.

00:29:05 ◼   ► And when you scroll to the bottom,

00:29:06 ◼   ► it doesn't just load more content.

00:29:08 ◼   ► And it doesn't direct you to other sites.

00:29:11 ◼   ► It is sort of a-- like my hyper focus on my readers' attention

00:29:18 ◼   ► is to value it so much, but not because I

00:29:20 ◼   ► want to take it from them, but because I

00:29:23 ◼   ► want them to feel like every second that they've

00:29:27 ◼   ► been kind enough to pay to me by coming to my website,

00:29:31 ◼   ► I would like to make sure they don't spend any more

00:29:35 ◼   ► time than they wanted to.

00:29:38 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:41 ◼   ► And like, man, weird--

00:29:43 ◼   ► it's like-- it feels like such a moral and ethical decision,

00:29:48 ◼   ► but it's also a business decision, right?

00:29:50 ◼   ► Like you and Glass are leaving so much money on the table.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Don't tell--

00:29:56 ◼   ► We could-- no, like there's a--

00:29:59 ◼   ► I know.

00:30:00 ◼   ► Don't tell my wife, though.

00:30:03 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

00:30:04 ◼   ► Like we got to keep this a secret.

00:30:06 ◼   ► There's so much more money in algorithms and just

00:30:10 ◼   ► endless advertising, but it feels bad.

00:30:13 ◼   ► And would you have the audience that you have today?

00:30:16 ◼   ► If that existed, no.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Would you have a bigger bank account?

00:30:19 ◼   ► Probably.

00:30:20 ◼   ► But is that trade-off worth it?

00:30:21 ◼   ► Once you reach a sustainable level,

00:30:24 ◼   ► it's like, what's the point of this?

00:30:25 ◼   ► Why am I doing this?

00:30:27 ◼   ► Why are we building this?

00:30:28 ◼   ► Why are we writing this?

00:30:30 ◼   ► And that was a question we had to ask ourselves.

00:30:33 ◼   ► And when it was--

00:30:35 ◼   ► push came to shove.

00:30:35 ◼   ► We care about our users.

00:30:36 ◼   ► We care about photographers, and we

00:30:38 ◼   ► care about how our brains feel when we use our product.

00:30:43 ◼   ► And like that--

00:30:44 ◼   ► I don't know, that matters.

00:30:47 ◼   ► I mean, Jon, I think I've--

00:30:49 ◼   ► I've followed "Daring Fireball" for a long time.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And I think-- Jon, I think you said

00:30:53 ◼   ► you wanted to write "Daring Fireball" for yourself,

00:30:56 ◼   ► I think, right?

00:30:56 ◼   ► You wanted to be--

00:30:59 ◼   ► yeah, like this is who I am.

00:31:01 ◼   ► I'm a Mac nerd.

00:31:02 ◼   ► I love this.

00:31:02 ◼   ► I want to read all about this stuff.

00:31:04 ◼   ► This is who I am.

00:31:06 ◼   ► And I think a lot of what we're trying to do with Glass

00:31:08 ◼   ► is we want to enjoy using this product.

00:31:10 ◼   ► We want to love working on it.

00:31:11 ◼   ► And we want to do it for photographers.

00:31:13 ◼   ► And I'm much better at building products

00:31:15 ◼   ► than I am as a photographer, but I love building products

00:31:19 ◼   ► for photographers.

00:31:20 ◼   ► It's been something I've done a long time.

00:31:22 ◼   ► You even linked to a project I did, I mean, two years ago--

00:31:27 ◼   ► I mean, forever ago, a couple of them.

00:31:29 ◼   ► And I'm thankful for both of them.

00:31:31 ◼   ► But it was just a bit of a passion of mine

00:31:34 ◼   ► to work on this stuff.

00:31:35 ◼   ► And so--

00:31:36 ◼   ► Which was that?

00:31:37 ◼   ► What was the old product I linked to?

00:31:40 ◼   ► I think you told me this before, but I forgot.

00:31:43 ◼   ► No, it's OK.

00:31:44 ◼   ► There's two.

00:31:45 ◼   ► One, this was early.

00:31:47 ◼   ► I was actually living in Japan at the time,

00:31:48 ◼   ► but I worked on a content management system.

00:31:51 ◼   ► And it was one of the first people to use--

00:31:53 ◼   ► it was called Manuscript.

00:31:54 ◼   ► And I used Markdown.

00:31:55 ◼   ► And it was like the Perl script version of it.

00:31:57 ◼   ► And you were like-- it was a PHP content management system.

00:32:00 ◼   ► It was terrible.

00:32:00 ◼   ► No one used it.

00:32:01 ◼   ► But I was young.

00:32:02 ◼   ► And you were like-- you wrote me back.

00:32:04 ◼   ► And you're like, you should really use the PHP version of it.

00:32:08 ◼   ► And I really should have, but whatever.

00:32:10 ◼   ► And then the other one was--

00:32:12 ◼   ► I made this old Flickr importing site

00:32:17 ◼   ► that was a way to buy prints from photographers.

00:32:20 ◼   ► And it was called Level and Tap.

00:32:22 ◼   ► And it was like a print sharing service.

00:32:24 ◼   ► And you could print photos from photographers.

00:32:26 ◼   ► And it was-- it was like 2009.

00:32:28 ◼   ► And I think the other one was maybe 2004.

00:32:31 ◼   ► I mean, I don't remember when you made Markdown.

00:32:33 ◼   ► But these things are forever ago now.

00:32:37 ◼   ► But they've been around the internet a long time building

00:32:40 ◼   ► these things.

00:32:40 ◼   ► And we just wanted to build something we really loved.

00:32:43 ◼   ► And after working at these big companies,

00:32:48 ◼   ► I didn't want to leave the internet without working

00:32:50 ◼   ► on something really, really meaningful to me

00:32:53 ◼   ► and to Daniel and to Staphon and others.

00:32:56 ◼   ► And it's been-- it's resonated.

00:32:58 ◼   ► And it's felt really good.

00:32:59 ◼   ► And we want to keep working on it.

00:33:02 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Markdown was early 2004 when I first published it.

00:33:07 ◼   ► But it's funny that you say that.

00:33:08 ◼   ► And I won't go on a long Markdown-related digression.

00:33:11 ◼   ► But one thing when people ask me historically about Markdown

00:33:14 ◼   ► is that it's had a very weird, to me, lifetime popularity

00:33:19 ◼   ► wise, where when I first went public with it,

00:33:22 ◼   ► I was really pretty sure this was a great idea.

00:33:26 ◼   ► Because at least I was so happy because I

00:33:29 ◼   ► had, unbeknownst to the world, been writing everything.

00:33:34 ◼   ► I started doing Fireball in 2002.

00:33:36 ◼   ► Used to format all my posts in HTML.

00:33:39 ◼   ► And I started getting sick of that as I went and started

00:33:43 ◼   ► having these little scripts I wrote

00:33:46 ◼   ► to turn less and less raw HTML into HTML

00:33:50 ◼   ► before I actually posted it.

00:33:52 ◼   ► But then once I posted anything, any edits I had to make,

00:33:56 ◼   ► I was looking, staring at raw HTML source code.

00:33:59 ◼   ► And I thought, this is for the birds.

00:34:02 ◼   ► And secretly behind the scenes, as I was developing Markdown,

00:34:05 ◼   ► I was dogfooding it, meaning I was writing all my posts

00:34:10 ◼   ► in the prototypes of Markdown as it went.

00:34:13 ◼   ► And then every time I'd make a syntax change,

00:34:17 ◼   ► I'd have to go back and edit the last two months of posts

00:34:20 ◼   ► because I changed the rules for what an asterisk meant

00:34:24 ◼   ► or whatever the differences were.

00:34:26 ◼   ► And then three months go by, four months go by,

00:34:29 ◼   ► and it's more and more posts I've

00:34:31 ◼   ► got to edit every time I make a change, but it was worth it.

00:34:33 ◼   ► But by the time I went public, I thought, this is great.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Aaron Swartz, who was my top beta tester and muse and foil

00:34:41 ◼   ► for bouncing these ideas off, was even more enthusiastic

00:34:45 ◼   ► than me.

00:34:46 ◼   ► And as soon as I went public with it,

00:34:47 ◼   ► he sent more promotional things to other websites

00:34:53 ◼   ► saying, John Gruber's launched this thing, Markdown.

00:34:55 ◼   ► It is a fantastic idea.

00:34:57 ◼   ► He was 100% sure this was--

00:35:00 ◼   ► I mean, it's a shame he passed away tragically.

00:35:06 ◼   ► But he would be so happy but also

00:35:08 ◼   ► unsurprised by Markdown's almost absurd popularity today.

00:35:14 ◼   ► But anyway, long story short, the first few years

00:35:16 ◼   ► after I announced it, I was so--

00:35:19 ◼   ► it was sort of crickets chirping.

00:35:21 ◼   ► And it was like, I can't believe this.

00:35:23 ◼   ► I really thought this was going to take off.

00:35:25 ◼   ► And then it did take off, but only years later, maybe

00:35:30 ◼   ► like by--

00:35:30 ◼   ► took like three or four years before it really

00:35:32 ◼   ► started taking off.

00:35:34 ◼   ► And then very, very quickly, it became, in my opinion,

00:35:37 ◼   ► too popular, where it's like, no, no, you

00:35:39 ◼   ► shouldn't be using Markdown.

00:35:40 ◼   ► This is way too nerdy for the users that you're targeting.

00:35:44 ◼   ► You should just have a simple WYSIWYG thing.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Let people hit Command-I and make it italic.

00:35:48 ◼   ► This is too popular.

00:35:51 ◼   ► It was a very strange thing.

00:35:52 ◼   ► So I do remember that.

00:35:53 ◼   ► And in the early years, it was unpopular enough

00:35:56 ◼   ► that somebody could make a site and they were using Markdown.

00:35:59 ◼   ► And I'd find out about it and know about it

00:36:01 ◼   ► and be able to send them a note like, hey,

00:36:04 ◼   ► you should use Michelle--

00:36:05 ◼   ► Mikel Fortin's PHP Markdown.

00:36:07 ◼   ► It would be better for you.

00:36:09 ◼   ► Yep, that was the one.

00:36:11 ◼   ► Yep, I remember it and thinking, oh, yeah, I should do it.

00:36:13 ◼   ► But it was 2004.

00:36:16 ◼   ► So it was-- yeah, it was a long time ago.

00:36:18 ◼   ► Because I remember I was living in Japan in 2003 and 2004.

00:36:21 ◼   ► So yeah, that makes sense.

00:36:22 ◼   ► That makes you a very early adopter and somebody

00:36:25 ◼   ► who recognized it.

00:36:26 ◼   ► So it's great minds think alike.

00:36:28 ◼   ► It's no doubt that I'm such a fan of glass.

00:36:30 ◼   ► We obviously-- our tastes are largely aligned.

00:36:33 ◼   ► All right, let me take a break here

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00:39:00 ◼   ► Find your perfect look for this spring.

00:39:04 ◼   ► All right, one of the things I wanted to talk about is you

00:39:07 ◼   ► guys--

00:39:07 ◼   ► you mentioned it before, but one of the--

00:39:11 ◼   ► well, at a higher level, I was going to talk about science.

00:39:13 ◼   ► I didn't sign in with Apple.

00:39:14 ◼   ► But at a higher level, at least right now, on mobile,

00:39:18 ◼   ► Glass is iOS only.

00:39:21 ◼   ► It launched in August solely on iPhone,

00:39:26 ◼   ► although you could run the app on iPad.

00:39:29 ◼   ► And I think about two weeks ago, three weeks ago,

00:39:34 ◼   ► you guys launched the iPad app.

00:39:37 ◼   ► Is that the right timeline?

00:39:38 ◼   ► Two weeks, yeah.

00:39:42 ◼   ► And coincidentally, I'm glad I didn't have you on two weeks

00:39:45 ◼   ► ago.

00:39:46 ◼   ► But as we speak, now you've launched a web version

00:39:50 ◼   ► at glass.photo that you can visit on the desktop.

00:39:53 ◼   ► So right now, it's iPhone, iPad, and web.

00:39:57 ◼   ► And I would love to hear you guys talk about why you

00:40:02 ◼   ► launched, or at least why it's still iOS only,

00:40:04 ◼   ► whether you have plans to keep it iOS only,

00:40:07 ◼   ► and how in the world did you do what seems impossible,

00:40:11 ◼   ► given my experience with certain other products

00:40:14 ◼   ► we've already talked about, to have an iPad?

00:40:17 ◼   ► I thought making an iPad app was impossible.

00:40:22 ◼   ► There's not a lot of users in iPad apps.

00:40:24 ◼   ► That's what I've heard.

00:40:26 ◼   ► That's the word around town.

00:40:27 ◼   ► Not a lot of people use iPads.

00:40:29 ◼   ► They just sell $20 million to nobody every year.

00:40:32 ◼   ► iPad users go to hell.

00:40:34 ◼   ► We don't need you.

00:40:36 ◼   ► We do.

00:40:37 ◼   ► We do need you.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Yeah, so we launched on iOS originally,

00:40:42 ◼   ► instead of Android, for the very obvious reason

00:40:46 ◼   ► of we're iPhone users.

00:40:49 ◼   ► It's not nefarious.

00:40:52 ◼   ► Android cameras are wonderful now.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Google Pixel takes wonderful photos.

00:40:57 ◼   ► But we don't use them.

00:40:59 ◼   ► We use iPhones.

00:41:00 ◼   ► And we needed to build a product for us.

00:41:02 ◼   ► And so we built it on iOS.

00:41:05 ◼   ► The reason we didn't launch with an Android app or an iPad

00:41:08 ◼   ► app was because it's really hard to build an app, y'all.

00:41:12 ◼   ► It is just really hard and complicated.

00:41:16 ◼   ► And so with such a small team, we

00:41:19 ◼   ► had to pick an ecosystem and get started.

00:41:22 ◼   ► So we picked iOS.

00:41:25 ◼   ► And then when we launched with iOS,

00:41:28 ◼   ► it was never going to just be iOS.

00:41:32 ◼   ► iPad was our dream.

00:41:33 ◼   ► I'm an iPad Pro only user.

00:41:37 ◼   ► That's the joy of being in marketing and community.

00:41:41 ◼   ► You don't need to design anything in Figma.

00:41:43 ◼   ► You can just use an iPad for everything.

00:41:46 ◼   ► It is wonderful.

00:41:48 ◼   ► And so every time Tom would send me a new build, I'd be like,

00:41:51 ◼   ► hey, where's our iPad app?

00:41:54 ◼   ► And he's like, it's coming one day.

00:41:56 ◼   ► And then candidly, over Christmas break,

00:41:58 ◼   ► our engineer just sat there and made it for fun.

00:42:02 ◼   ► And that worked out wonderfully.

00:42:07 ◼   ► I mean, we did do quite a bit of design work.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Come on now.

00:42:10 ◼   ► But yeah, you did.

00:42:12 ◼   ► But yeah, and the web is coming.

00:42:15 ◼   ► So we're in the alpha stages.

00:42:16 ◼   ► We sent you an early alpha.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Ah, OK.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Well, have I blabbed?

00:42:20 ◼   ► Do we need to take this out?

00:42:22 ◼   ► Have I blabbed a terrible secret that I wasn't supposed to say?

00:42:25 ◼   ► No, no.

00:42:27 ◼   ► No, no, we've totally announced we're not

00:42:30 ◼   ► quite as important as Apple to keep everything hypersecret

00:42:33 ◼   ► until the release.

00:42:34 ◼   ► We wanted our members to know that the alpha is coming

00:42:36 ◼   ► in.

00:42:37 ◼   ► We were actually testing it with a large number of our members

00:42:40 ◼   ► to get things going.

00:42:41 ◼   ► But yeah, we're hoping to launch in the next month,

00:42:44 ◼   ► I would say.

00:42:45 ◼   ► March would be great, maybe early April depending.

00:42:48 ◼   ► But it's going to be--

00:42:50 ◼   ► things take time.

00:42:51 ◼   ► It's always-- it's a process.

00:42:53 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, it's been great to get

00:42:56 ◼   ► these multiple platforms out there.

00:42:58 ◼   ► And you mentioned signing with Apple.

00:43:00 ◼   ► Or I mean, I can talk about signing with Apple.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Or we can talk about which other platforms we want to go to.

00:43:05 ◼   ► But yeah, like Daniel covered, we love iPhones and iPads.

00:43:09 ◼   ► And so we made it for that.

00:43:11 ◼   ► And also our members, I mean, that

00:43:14 ◼   ► was the most requested feature when we launched was an iPad

00:43:18 ◼   ► app.

00:43:19 ◼   ► Follow right after with a web experience.

00:43:22 ◼   ► And so we were like, OK, well, that's

00:43:23 ◼   ► what we should be building for everyone.

00:43:25 ◼   ► It's nice and easy.

00:43:26 ◼   ► We have a great-- if you go to feedback.glass.photo,

00:43:29 ◼   ► we all have members.

00:43:30 ◼   ► They leave tons of feedback.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Sean, you've given us great feedback.

00:43:33 ◼   ► It's how we prioritize stuff.

00:43:36 ◼   ► I mean, it's really so simple.

00:43:37 ◼   ► And we talk about it all the time.

00:43:39 ◼   ► But when your customer is the people who are paying you

00:43:42 ◼   ► instead of advertisers, you can make very different product

00:43:44 ◼   ► choices.

00:43:45 ◼   ► It's really simple.

00:43:46 ◼   ► Well, one of the things I'll just say--

00:43:48 ◼   ► I mean, and people can go to your website

00:43:50 ◼   ► and see screenshots and stuff.

00:43:51 ◼   ► But here on the podcast, I'll just describe it.

00:43:54 ◼   ► The iPad version is not just a bigger version

00:43:59 ◼   ► of the iPhone version.

00:44:00 ◼   ► The iPhone version, given the nature of the iPhone

00:44:03 ◼   ► as a small screen that has a very sort of extreme aspect

00:44:07 ◼   ► ratio, is a vertical list of photos

00:44:13 ◼   ► that you scroll down with effectively a one column layout.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Whereas on the iPad, because it's a different screen closer

00:44:23 ◼   ► to square, you guys take advantage of it

00:44:26 ◼   ► by laying out the photos in a grid that fills the screen.

00:44:30 ◼   ► But it's not just a single column.

00:44:32 ◼   ► It is very-- and when you rotate,

00:44:34 ◼   ► you get a different layout because the orientation

00:44:37 ◼   ► is different.

00:44:37 ◼   ► And it's a long way of saying you guys put some really

00:44:42 ◼   ► serious design work into thinking about how would you

00:44:45 ◼   ► lay this out for a bigger screen as opposed to just making

00:44:49 ◼   ► a bigger version.

00:44:50 ◼   ► And we mentioned Adam Masseri at Instagram.

00:44:55 ◼   ► And it's perennial.

00:44:57 ◼   ► It popped up again just this week.

00:44:59 ◼   ► I think it was Marques Brownlee.

00:45:01 ◼   ► Yeah, Marques Brownlee posted a tweet that said, hey, it's 2022

00:45:06 ◼   ► and Instagram still has no iPad app.

00:45:08 ◼   ► And Adam Masseri engaged with him to his credit

00:45:11 ◼   ► right there in public in Twitter and sort of gave

00:45:15 ◼   ► their company line, which is weird, right?

00:45:20 ◼   ► The way Marques posted that is perfect

00:45:23 ◼   ► because they can say what they want about why there's

00:45:27 ◼   ► no iPad version of Instagram in 2022 lo these many years later

00:45:33 ◼   ► at a company that is not running out of money, to say the least.

00:45:40 ◼   ► But part of his thread is, he says, each surface adds overhead.

00:45:45 ◼   ► We support iOS, Android, the web, and Instagram Lite.

00:45:49 ◼   ► And Android is the largest.

00:45:52 ◼   ► Two, TikTok and YouTube are behemoths and it's probably

00:45:57 ◼   ► a word I'm mispronouncing, behemoths.

00:45:59 ◼   ► I don't know how you pronounce it, but I know the word.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Behemoth.

00:46:02 ◼   ► Behemoths, that's right, behemoths.

00:46:04 ◼   ► Where do I know that from a movie?

00:46:05 ◼   ► Oh, Reservoir Dogs, right?

00:46:09 ◼   ► The radio guy uses the word behemoth.

00:46:11 ◼   ► There it is, yes.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Behemoth.

00:46:13 ◼   ► Oh, man, live correction of my pronunciation

00:46:16 ◼   ► right here on the show.

00:46:17 ◼   ► People share more in messages than they do to store your feed

00:46:20 ◼   ► so we need to adapt.

00:46:21 ◼   ► So in two, he's more or less talking about their war

00:46:28 ◼   ► over people's attention with TikTok and YouTube, right?

00:46:31 ◼   ► And there they're already talking about the way

00:46:34 ◼   ► that, for example, Instagram is-- and he's

00:46:36 ◼   ► been clear about this, right?

00:46:38 ◼   ► To his credit, he's been kind of clear.

00:46:41 ◼   ► He said explicitly late last year that Instagram

00:46:44 ◼   ► is no longer a photo sharing site, at least alone, right?

00:46:48 ◼   ► Sharing photos is one of many things that it does.

00:46:50 ◼   ► And number two in his points here

00:46:52 ◼   ► of why they haven't prioritized making an iPad version

00:46:55 ◼   ► is they're too busy fighting with TikTok and YouTube

00:46:59 ◼   ► over people's time for their attention.

00:47:02 ◼   ► And then number three, we are leaner than you think,

00:47:05 ◼   ► meaning, hey, you might think we're huge.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Number three, let's--

00:47:10 ◼   ► I'm going to guess.

00:47:11 ◼   ► Number three is a tough one for me.

00:47:13 ◼   ► Number three is a tough one.

00:47:14 ◼   ► It's a tough one to swallow because I'm just going to--

00:47:17 ◼   ► I'm going to guess that no matter how surprisingly lean

00:47:22 ◼   ► Instagram's iOS development team is,

00:47:25 ◼   ► that it's not as lean as glasses.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Our one.

00:47:30 ◼   ► We got one.

00:47:33 ◼   ► Just won't someone please think of the poor, small, tiny

00:47:37 ◼   ► Instagram up against the behemoths of YouTube

00:47:40 ◼   ► and TikTok, please?

00:47:42 ◼   ► Let's take a moment and think about Instagram.

00:47:44 ◼   ► I am just-- I love how it goes from reasonable and thoughtful

00:47:50 ◼   ► and normal and then like, ooh, now we're

00:47:53 ◼   ► talking about like, ugh, your business model.

00:47:55 ◼   ► And now we're talking about how you're four people in a garage.

00:47:59 ◼   ► Great, guys.

00:48:00 ◼   ► Great.

00:48:00 ◼   ► There's got to be something else.

00:48:07 ◼   ► And I still feel even with as open as Adam Aseri has started

00:48:11 ◼   ► to try to be it seemingly over the last year or so about why

00:48:15 ◼   ► they don't have an iPad app, there's got to be something

00:48:18 ◼   ► else.

00:48:18 ◼   ► And I know I've seen the spitball theory.

00:48:21 ◼   ► And if you want to, maybe it's not a bad guess

00:48:23 ◼   ► to be as cynical as possible about what the explanation is

00:48:28 ◼   ► or what some of the explanations is.

00:48:29 ◼   ► But that there's something something ad tech-wise

00:48:34 ◼   ► where they feel they make more money per minute spent

00:48:37 ◼   ► while people are on their phones than they would on the iPad.

00:48:43 ◼   ► And I don't know-- they're a very data-driven company

00:48:46 ◼   ► famously.

00:48:47 ◼   ► I don't know if you've heard this,

00:48:48 ◼   ► but they collect an awful lot of information about the--

00:48:51 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:48:53 ◼   ► The interact--

00:48:53 ◼   ► It's news to me.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Every single thing every single person does in their app,

00:48:59 ◼   ► they collect and study and analyze.

00:49:00 ◼   ► But to me, it's almost like they can't quite

00:49:03 ◼   ► know what the difference in usage

00:49:06 ◼   ► is if they had an iPad app because as far as I know,

00:49:09 ◼   ► they've never secretly built an iPad app

00:49:12 ◼   ► and done any kind of A/B testing.

00:49:16 ◼   ► Maybe internally, I don't know.

00:49:18 ◼   ► But it doesn't seem like publicly that's ever happened.

00:49:20 ◼   ► That seems like the sort of thing

00:49:22 ◼   ► that would be all over the web the moment that it came out

00:49:27 ◼   ► for some people.

00:49:28 ◼   ► But they have reason to believe that there's

00:49:31 ◼   ► some reason that they really want people to use Instagram

00:49:36 ◼   ► on their phone and only on their phone as much as possible.

00:49:40 ◼   ► Do you guys think that?

00:49:42 ◼   ► I don't know what that would be, though.

00:49:44 ◼   ► It makes sense that there's some thing they won't say.

00:49:48 ◼   ► But whenever I do think about it--

00:49:50 ◼   ► and I thought about it a lot over the last couple of days

00:49:53 ◼   ► because by coincidence, he just had a Twitter thread talking

00:49:56 ◼   ► about it after Marques brought it up,

00:49:57 ◼   ► and you guys were coming on the show.

00:49:59 ◼   ► But yet, I'm still stuck.

00:50:01 ◼   ► It's like playing Wirtle, and you're on line four,

00:50:04 ◼   ► and you're looking at your first three guesses.

00:50:06 ◼   ► And you're like, well, it must be a word.

00:50:09 ◼   ► But damn if I can think of a word that fits this pattern.

00:50:12 ◼   ► I still can't think of why they don't have some basically

00:50:16 ◼   ► reasonable iPad app.

00:50:18 ◼   ► Do you guys have an idea?

00:50:21 ◼   ► Is there something we're missing?

00:50:24 ◼   ► The thing I heard back in the day,

00:50:26 ◼   ► and I just immediately believed without investigating it

00:50:29 ◼   ► further, is after Facebook bot Instagram,

00:50:35 ◼   ► and Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg had a beef,

00:50:39 ◼   ► he just killed the thing and said,

00:50:41 ◼   ► we're never putting it on iPad.

00:50:42 ◼   ► And now there's just an angry avatar of Zuckerberg's face

00:50:47 ◼   ► anytime someone brings up iPad.

00:50:49 ◼   ► That's the one I heard a decade ago

00:50:52 ◼   ► and believed without looking into it any further.

00:50:55 ◼   ► And that's why we don't have-- it's just personal beef

00:50:57 ◼   ► between billionaires.

00:50:58 ◼   ► Oh, I like that.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Your answer makes way more sense,

00:51:03 ◼   ► but I like the billionaire beef.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, mine is much more boring.

00:51:11 ◼   ► I think it's prioritization of resources.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Like Adam's saying, the lean bit is a little rich,

00:51:17 ◼   ► but the parts about them going after the other companies

00:51:20 ◼   ► and the iPad becoming less of a priority

00:51:25 ◼   ► because they put all their team's resources

00:51:28 ◼   ► behind all these new features and all this new stuff

00:51:30 ◼   ► is the most likely scenario.

00:51:33 ◼   ► I worked at Pinterest for almost five years

00:51:36 ◼   ► and was responsible for a lot of the design work,

00:51:39 ◼   ► and we did have an iPad app, and it was incredibly

00:51:42 ◼   ► engaging when I was there.

00:51:44 ◼   ► So people used it a ton.

00:51:46 ◼   ► So I'm not sure why that wouldn't hold up

00:51:49 ◼   ► because it's like it was a very immersive experience,

00:51:52 ◼   ► that product.

00:51:54 ◼   ► But maybe because of the way Instagram's ad columns work

00:51:56 ◼   ► and the way they would have to reconfigure stuff,

00:51:58 ◼   ► it's a lot more work than it seems from the outside.

00:52:00 ◼   ► And those are my best assumptions as to why.

00:52:04 ◼   ► I never heard about the personal billionaire beef theory

00:52:07 ◼   ► that Daniel has when I was there, but it's fun.

00:52:10 ◼   ► It's more than a day.

00:52:11 ◼   ► - It's possible.

00:52:12 ◼   ► Billionaires have beefs.

00:52:13 ◼   ► But it does bring up an interesting point

00:52:16 ◼   ► that I think happens a lot,

00:52:18 ◼   ► especially when we're talking about Instagram,

00:52:20 ◼   ► is that, excuse me, it feels like Instagram

00:52:24 ◼   ► was never allowed to be what it wants to be.

00:52:28 ◼   ► Instagram was built as Instagram,

00:52:31 ◼   ► and it was wonderful for a couple of years,

00:52:32 ◼   ► and then it got bought, and then ads started appearing,

00:52:36 ◼   ► and then Snapchat became a thing, and we had to add stories.

00:52:40 ◼   ► And the product of Instagram and what Instagram

00:52:43 ◼   ► was originally built to do and its obvious product,

00:52:47 ◼   ► Roadmap Forward, were shifted drastically

00:52:50 ◼   ► by the different needs of Facebook

00:52:53 ◼   ► versus what would have made a profitable app

00:52:55 ◼   ► for Instagram on its own.

00:52:57 ◼   ► And so now we have it becoming TikTok,

00:53:01 ◼   ► and we have it, remember Instagram TV

00:53:04 ◼   ► when they put the TV icon where your notification icon was

00:53:08 ◼   ► so you could get your monthly users up for Instagram TV?

00:53:13 ◼   ► It's a shopping app.

00:53:14 ◼   ► It's never been allowed to be what it wants to be,

00:53:17 ◼   ► it feels like, 'cause as a product,

00:53:18 ◼   ► it just wants to be a nice, fun place

00:53:20 ◼   ► to share stuff with friends.

00:53:21 ◼   ► And yet, because of how the business model works

00:53:25 ◼   ► for venture capital backed companies at this scale,

00:53:28 ◼   ► you just need all the data,

00:53:29 ◼   ► and so you just have to make it addictive,

00:53:31 ◼   ► and that's that, right?

00:53:33 ◼   ► And it makes me sad.

00:53:34 ◼   ► Oh God, it's so sad.

00:53:36 ◼   ► - We would talk about this like an earnest internet.

00:53:41 ◼   ► I think Daniel and I, we've had this conversation before,

00:53:43 ◼   ► and it's this like, we don't wanna sound old or fudgy

00:53:48 ◼   ► 'cause we think there's a future in it,

00:53:50 ◼   ► and that glasses, our attempt at showing a different way,

00:53:55 ◼   ► making a scalable product like glass,

00:54:00 ◼   ► and even five, six years ago was pretty difficult,

00:54:05 ◼   ► but you know, and Amazon Web Services,

00:54:08 ◼   ► like scalable architecture,

00:54:09 ◼   ► you can do it with a very small and lean team,

00:54:11 ◼   ► and you can do these independent things,

00:54:13 ◼   ► and we could build a better place for all of us

00:54:16 ◼   ► and a more future forward looking place to spend our time.

00:54:20 ◼   ► I think I look back and wasn't wild about my decade spent

00:54:26 ◼   ► building social experiences on the internet,

00:54:29 ◼   ► but that was what I'm good at now.

00:54:31 ◼   ► Like I spent a decade getting good at that,

00:54:33 ◼   ► and I wanted to figure out a way to design a product

00:54:36 ◼   ► that felt really good in that way,

00:54:39 ◼   ► and like to spend time on it,

00:54:40 ◼   ► and you'd feel good when you're done with it.

00:54:43 ◼   ► And so it felt right to take a swing at it,

00:54:47 ◼   ► and Glass is the result of that,

00:54:49 ◼   ► and so that's where, yeah,

00:54:52 ◼   ► a little over two years into building it,

00:54:53 ◼   ► and six months out, we're just, yeah, anyway.

00:54:56 ◼   ► - You guys, I will put it in the show notes,

00:54:59 ◼   ► but somebody, I know, I think it was Daniel,

00:55:01 ◼   ► you mentioned somebody just had a side-by-side comparison

00:55:04 ◼   ► of how photos look in Glass versus Instagram,

00:55:07 ◼   ► and just how much more, they're smaller

00:55:09 ◼   ► because they have to make more room for stuff,

00:55:11 ◼   ► and there's just more extra buttons,

00:55:13 ◼   ► but at least they're still sized right for the device,

00:55:18 ◼   ► and I think they must know this,

00:55:22 ◼   ► but it's like my wife, she loves her iPad Pro.

00:55:26 ◼   ► She still has an old MacBook Pro that she uses

00:55:30 ◼   ► when there's still certain things

00:55:32 ◼   ► that are a little bit better to do on a Mac,

00:55:35 ◼   ► and she'll use the Mac,

00:55:36 ◼   ► she doesn't have a keyboard for her iPad.

00:55:38 ◼   ► She literally only uses her iPad as something

00:55:41 ◼   ► she pecks at on screen,

00:55:43 ◼   ► has no interest in Bluetooth or a keyboard case,

00:55:47 ◼   ► so she has to write a long email, she'll go to her MacBook,

00:55:50 ◼   ► but she loves her iPad, and for day-to-day computing,

00:55:54 ◼   ► it's her primary device,

00:55:56 ◼   ► and she uses Instagram on her iPad.

00:55:59 ◼   ► I see her doing it all the time,

00:56:00 ◼   ► and it's that feature that they've had

00:56:03 ◼   ► ever since they debuted it in 2011, the iPad,

00:56:06 ◼   ► where you can run unchanged iPhone apps on the iPad,

00:56:11 ◼   ► and they either show up as a ridiculous

00:56:14 ◼   ► little iPhone-sized window

00:56:18 ◼   ► surrounded by four-inch black bezels,

00:56:21 ◼   ► or there's always been, from the get-go, still is,

00:56:24 ◼   ► a 2X button that runs at double the size

00:56:27 ◼   ► to sort of resize to fit the aspect ratio of the iPad,

00:56:32 ◼   ► and that's how she, of course,

00:56:34 ◼   ► that's how she runs Instagram,

00:56:36 ◼   ► and I'm not nosy, I don't look over her shoulder much,

00:56:40 ◼   ► but I see her doing it,

00:56:41 ◼   ► and sometimes I see she's on Instagram,

00:56:43 ◼   ► and even with my not-so-great vision as I age,

00:56:48 ◼   ► I can tell just walking past her

00:56:52 ◼   ► how grainy everything is by blowing it up 2X,

00:56:56 ◼   ► and I'm sure, at Instagram scale,

00:56:59 ◼   ► there are, I guess, tens of millions,

00:57:03 ◼   ► but maybe more users who do use Instagram on iPad,

00:57:07 ◼   ► so where I'm going is, no,

00:57:10 ◼   ► they do not have a native Instagram app

00:57:12 ◼   ► designed for the iPad,

00:57:15 ◼   ► but people use Instagram on iPad.

00:57:19 ◼   ► They must know that they do,

00:57:21 ◼   ► and maybe it really is fewer people than we think.

00:57:25 ◼   ► I don't know, but it would drive me bonkers to be there,

00:57:29 ◼   ► and again, I'm trying to be as diplomatic

00:57:32 ◼   ► and as gracious to Instagram in this interview as I can be.

00:57:35 ◼   ► They do care about design, right?

00:57:39 ◼   ► Like, Instagram is not, and it never has been a junky app,

00:57:43 ◼   ► and they have some really interesting interactions.

00:57:47 ◼   ► They still do.

00:57:48 ◼   ► On iOS, they scroll really well,

00:57:51 ◼   ► which is always a hard thing to do.

00:57:53 ◼   ► It drives me, it's always been curious to me.

00:57:56 ◼   ► I use a Pixel 4 for Android testing.

00:58:00 ◼   ► It scrolls way better on iOS than Android,

00:58:02 ◼   ► which I can't, again, like the way that Marques points out

00:58:05 ◼   ► that it's weird that in 2022,

00:58:07 ◼   ► it's still a thing that they don't have an iPad app.

00:58:09 ◼   ► I also find it weird that apps don't scroll as well

00:58:12 ◼   ► in Android in 2022 as they do on iOS,

00:58:16 ◼   ► but they obviously care about things.

00:58:18 ◼   ► That would drive me nuts to know that,

00:58:20 ◼   ► and the other thing, and this is where having Glass on iPad

00:58:25 ◼   ► emphasizes something you know to be true,

00:58:26 ◼   ► but when you see it, it's more profound than you think.

00:58:30 ◼   ► Looking at photos bigger is nicer, right?

00:58:35 ◼   ► When you see, Ohm Malik, I know you guys did an interview,

00:58:39 ◼   ► or Tom, I think, at least, did an interview with Ohm months ago.

00:58:43 ◼   ► He's a great photographer,

00:58:46 ◼   ► and he's really become interested in it,

00:58:48 ◼   ► and he had a photo that was featured, I think, recently

00:58:51 ◼   ► by the Leica social media accounts.

00:58:54 ◼   ► He went on a trip to Antarctica

00:58:55 ◼   ► and just took this beautiful, beautiful photo.

00:58:57 ◼   ► I could look at that one photo of a mountain in Antarctica,

00:59:01 ◼   ► just like when you're walking in a museum

00:59:03 ◼   ► and a certain piece grabs you,

00:59:05 ◼   ► and I think everybody knows this experience

00:59:07 ◼   ► where you're kind of just, ah, nice, nice, nice,

00:59:10 ◼   ► and then a piece grabs you,

00:59:11 ◼   ► and you just stare at it for minutes and minutes.

00:59:15 ◼   ► That's part of the joy of going to a museum.

00:59:18 ◼   ► It's nice to see it on the biggest screen you possibly can,

00:59:21 ◼   ► and the iPad is so much nicer for that than the iPhone.

00:59:26 ◼   ► - It's by far my favorite way to experience it, the glass now.

00:59:30 ◼   ► I mean, it's so immersive, it's so big.

00:59:32 ◼   ► I mean, I guess I'm getting a little biased now

00:59:34 ◼   ► because I have a big iMac sitting next to me

00:59:36 ◼   ► where I'm using the web version,

00:59:37 ◼   ► and you get to see them even bigger.

00:59:39 ◼   ► You know, it's like the bigger the screen,

00:59:40 ◼   ► the more immersive it is.

00:59:42 ◼   ► We have a, we're working on some ways to make it,

00:59:45 ◼   ► you know, you can pinch better

00:59:46 ◼   ► and get it even more immersive,

00:59:48 ◼   ► but the priorities for it, but yeah, it's great,

00:59:51 ◼   ► and you know, we do our best to make the UI

00:59:55 ◼   ► as minimal as possible, get it out of the way.

00:59:57 ◼   ► Photos get like as much pixels as we can possibly give them.

01:00:02 ◼   ► We spend a lot of time like resizing the images

01:00:06 ◼   ► to the proper viewports,

01:00:08 ◼   ► so we, the way we like handle it,

01:00:10 ◼   ► we upload it, we keep the full-size image,

01:00:12 ◼   ► and we scale it appropriately to the viewport,

01:00:14 ◼   ► so you get the highest resolution possible

01:00:17 ◼   ► while maintaining bandwidth costs and storage costs for us,

01:00:20 ◼   ► so like we can handle that stuff,

01:00:22 ◼   ► so it's a lot of like prioritization,

01:00:25 ◼   ► whereas like when you're at a scale that's like of Instagram,

01:00:30 ◼   ► you have to, you can't, you have to optimize the images,

01:00:34 ◼   ► you have to down sample them,

01:00:34 ◼   ► you have to like keep them smaller,

01:00:36 ◼   ► you have to keep the quality lower,

01:00:37 ◼   ► and so we can do a lot of things

01:00:40 ◼   ► that lets you really just experience the photo

01:00:42 ◼   ► in a beautiful way.

01:00:43 ◼   ► - And wouldn't it drive you nuts?

01:00:46 ◼   ► I mean, wasn't it?

01:00:48 ◼   ► I can't help but think this,

01:00:49 ◼   ► and I know that, you know,

01:00:50 ◼   ► I'm not trying to squeeze all of your future plans

01:00:53 ◼   ► for Glass out of you,

01:00:54 ◼   ► I'm trying to respect your ability to keep some stuff secret,

01:00:57 ◼   ► I still feel a little guilty about blabbing

01:01:00 ◼   ► about the web version.

01:01:01 ◼   ► - No, you're fine.

01:01:02 ◼   ► - All right, all right. - No, you're good.

01:01:04 ◼   ► - But didn't having Glass out for a few months

01:01:09 ◼   ► and knowing that people were firing up Glass for iPhone

01:01:14 ◼   ► on their iPad and looking at things in an unoptimized fashion

01:01:17 ◼   ► as somebody, a product designer who cares about the details

01:01:21 ◼   ► and really driven by it.

01:01:23 ◼   ► And you know, it sounds to me like,

01:01:25 ◼   ► long story short, you spent a lot of the last decade

01:01:27 ◼   ► doing product design for, you know,

01:01:30 ◼   ► working at Facebook and then working at Pinterest,

01:01:32 ◼   ► these big, well-known, world-famous, mega social sites

01:01:37 ◼   ► of wouldn't you love to build something for yourself

01:01:43 ◼   ► and let your own personal priorities and tastes

01:01:46 ◼   ► be a higher priority than engagement and ad revenue

01:01:51 ◼   ► and whatever other priorities you could put lower down.

01:01:54 ◼   ► It had to be a little more like, you know,

01:01:56 ◼   ► oh my God, we really, we gotta get this iPad out

01:01:59 ◼   ► because we really want to have people see these things

01:02:04 ◼   ► as beautiful as we can make them.

01:02:06 ◼   ► - Oh, I mean, I designed the very first version of Glass,

01:02:12 ◼   ► both iOS and iPad, like I was the very beginning,

01:02:15 ◼   ► that grid existed from the beginning.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Like I just, I wanted it on the iPad.

01:02:20 ◼   ► We wanted to do it on the iPad and we started building it

01:02:23 ◼   ► and we were like, this is a lot,

01:02:25 ◼   ► we have to do one at a time.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Like we just immediately realized we could build them

01:02:29 ◼   ► in tandem and not have to wait another, you know,

01:02:32 ◼   ► six or nine months to get it out.

01:02:33 ◼   ► And we just thought like, that's a tough call,

01:02:36 ◼   ► but we prioritize it.

01:02:37 ◼   ► And yeah, I mean, of course,

01:02:38 ◼   ► that's why I started Glass in the first place.

01:02:40 ◼   ► It was like, okay, Bennett done these big scale things,

01:02:43 ◼   ► what's next, like, what can I do?

01:02:46 ◼   ► I want to build something beautiful

01:02:48 ◼   ► and I want to have the priorities be different.

01:02:51 ◼   ► And if I take on venture capital and start something

01:02:54 ◼   ► with that in mind, it inevitably leads

01:02:56 ◼   ► to a different outcome.

01:02:57 ◼   ► I even, I talked to Om about it early, you know,

01:03:00 ◼   ► 'cause that's what Om does, he's in venture capital

01:03:02 ◼   ► and he's like, don't take anybody.

01:03:03 ◼   ► He was very explicit to us.

01:03:05 ◼   ► 'Cause he's like, if you do, it changes the entire dynamic.

01:03:09 ◼   ► Right, like he was really supportive of us early on

01:03:11 ◼   ► and that was great.

01:03:12 ◼   ► He was like an early alpha tester

01:03:13 ◼   ► and gave us lots of feedback.

01:03:16 ◼   ► He's a great photographer, like you said,

01:03:17 ◼   ► and it was just really clear.

01:03:20 ◼   ► And so this was the way in which we could do this

01:03:23 ◼   ► to be entirely member supported.

01:03:25 ◼   ► I remember like upcoming,

01:03:26 ◼   ► you remember the upcoming website, right?

01:03:28 ◼   ► Like, you know, they got bought and then they had to go away

01:03:30 ◼   ► like, you know, and they tried to come back.

01:03:31 ◼   ► - It was Andy Bales.

01:03:33 ◼   ► - Andy Bales things, you know.

01:03:35 ◼   ► - And I forget who he, I know he had a co-founders and.

01:03:39 ◼   ► - Leonard Len.

01:03:40 ◼   ► - Yep, and they built a site where community events

01:03:44 ◼   ► could be posted on a calendar, like conferences.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And it was also at a time when there were more

01:03:50 ◼   ► community events and I'm putting COVID aside,

01:03:52 ◼   ► not even talking about it.

01:03:53 ◼   ► It just seems like, again, maybe it's 'cause I'm old,

01:03:57 ◼   ► but it just seems like too much stuff has become virtual

01:03:59 ◼   ► as opposed to real, but it was up and then Yahoo bought it

01:04:02 ◼   ► and root dot, dot, dot.

01:04:09 ◼   ► - Right, it's step three.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Step three, instead of step.

01:04:13 ◼   ► - That's enough information.

01:04:14 ◼   ► - Instead of step three profit.

01:04:16 ◼   ► - You're good, now we can stop.

01:04:17 ◼   ► - It's step three ruined it.

01:04:19 ◼   ► While we're going down memory lane,

01:04:26 ◼   ► I have it on my list of things to talk about.

01:04:28 ◼   ► Let's get it out.

01:04:28 ◼   ► Let's talk about Flickr and where Flickr,

01:04:32 ◼   ► they're still active.

01:04:34 ◼   ► I don't wanna act, I don't wanna talk about them

01:04:36 ◼   ► in the past tense, I still have an account.

01:04:38 ◼   ► I'm glad they're still around.

01:04:41 ◼   ► And they went through the same Yahoo ringer upcoming did

01:04:45 ◼   ► where they went into Yahoo and things did not go well

01:04:48 ◼   ► and now they're back out of Yahoo.

01:04:50 ◼   ► I think it's SmugMug who bought them

01:04:53 ◼   ► and is running them independently.

01:04:54 ◼   ► And there's some similarities there

01:04:57 ◼   ► where Flickr is not ad-based, I don't think.

01:05:01 ◼   ► I don't know, at least when I log in, I don't see ads.

01:05:04 ◼   ► And they have paid--

01:05:05 ◼   ► - If you're a member, yeah.

01:05:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, they have paid, or at least,

01:05:08 ◼   ► which I am a paid member.

01:05:10 ◼   ► So they were early on that,

01:05:13 ◼   ► hey, what if we monetize by having some users pay?

01:05:18 ◼   ► But the truth is to be, let's just say it,

01:05:22 ◼   ► as a relevant factor in people's day-to-day lives,

01:05:26 ◼   ► Flickr is not what it once was by far

01:05:29 ◼   ► and clearly, Instagram came in and ate their cake on mobile.

01:05:34 ◼   ► Flickr never became a phone thing.

01:05:36 ◼   ► I know they have an app, but it just never became,

01:05:40 ◼   ► to me as a user, it was of the web era of the 2000s,

01:05:47 ◼   ► like the early years of Daring Fireball,

01:05:51 ◼   ► that 2003, four, five, six, seven period of,

01:05:56 ◼   ► when somebody would make a cool new thing,

01:05:59 ◼   ► that cool new thing was a website

01:06:02 ◼   ► and you'd go to flick, you take out a vowel,

01:06:06 ◼   ► get the dot com, and have the hitch be,

01:06:11 ◼   ► this is a thing, oh, this is a place where you can

01:06:15 ◼   ► post photos and then follow your friends

01:06:18 ◼   ► and see their photos, and it's like,

01:06:19 ◼   ► oh, that sounds cool, and then you do it.

01:06:21 ◼   ► But where do you think they got lost?

01:06:24 ◼   ► It's always a bit of a mystery to me

01:06:27 ◼   ► how something that was cool and fun

01:06:30 ◼   ► and never to me made one catastrophic mistake

01:06:34 ◼   ► or went bad in a certain way,

01:06:37 ◼   ► but it just sort of faded out of relevance,

01:06:39 ◼   ► and I'm curious if you guys have any thoughts about that.

01:06:42 ◼   ► - Right, Flickr is, oh, God,

01:06:47 ◼   ► formative years on the internet for me.

01:06:49 ◼   ► It defined my photography style.

01:06:52 ◼   ► I posted in so many stranger groups,

01:06:55 ◼   ► just internet strangers complimenting my work

01:06:57 ◼   ► and telling me where I'm doing things wrong

01:07:00 ◼   ► and where I can do better.

01:07:01 ◼   ► It was wonderful.

01:07:02 ◼   ► It defined me as a photographer.

01:07:05 ◼   ► And the team behind the original Flickr was exceptional.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Heather Champ was their original community leader,

01:07:15 ◼   ► and she coined the term don't be creepy.

01:07:19 ◼   ► Everyone knows that guy, don't be that guy.

01:07:21 ◼   ► As they put that just encoded in their user agreement

01:07:27 ◼   ► from the beginning, and that was a huge inspiration

01:07:31 ◼   ► for our own code of conduct and having

01:07:34 ◼   ► a defined don't be creepy, don't be a white supremacist,

01:07:39 ◼   ► no hate speech, having that ingrained at the beginning,

01:07:42 ◼   ► we launched with account reporting and blocking

01:07:46 ◼   ► so we could know immediately,

01:07:49 ◼   ► and you could delete your account on day one of Glass.

01:07:54 ◼   ► We prioritized those community features,

01:07:55 ◼   ► and it cost us development.

01:07:57 ◼   ► We launched with features that we wanted,

01:08:02 ◼   ► and we launched without features that we wanted

01:08:05 ◼   ► because we knew those were more important.

01:08:07 ◼   ► And so talking about Flickr makes me,

01:08:11 ◼   ► that was my first love, my first love on the internet,

01:08:14 ◼   ► and then it just kind of went away.

01:08:16 ◼   ► They missed the boat on phones.

01:08:19 ◼   ► They had a really, really bad app.

01:08:21 ◼   ► I remember using it on an iPad.

01:08:23 ◼   ► At least they had an iPad app.

01:08:25 ◼   ► But the app didn't work great.

01:08:28 ◼   ► They didn't allow things to be easily shared

01:08:30 ◼   ► to other platforms, and then the people left.

01:08:35 ◼   ► As soon as there's something cool and new

01:08:37 ◼   ► that gets you eyeballs, you just kinda, they kinda leave.

01:08:41 ◼   ► We've been very clear when we've been talking about Glass

01:08:44 ◼   ► that Glass is a community, not a marketing channel.

01:08:48 ◼   ► If you're coming as a photographer

01:08:50 ◼   ► to try to build your business on Glass,

01:08:53 ◼   ► you're gonna have a hard time.

01:08:54 ◼   ► It's not that we don't want you to succeed,

01:08:56 ◼   ► but that's not what it's for.

01:08:59 ◼   ► It is built for sharing your work with other people

01:09:02 ◼   ► who can help you improve,

01:09:04 ◼   ► and where you can find inspiration from.

01:09:06 ◼   ► It's an inward thing, not an outward thing.

01:09:11 ◼   ► And Flickr had a lot of those same vibes

01:09:13 ◼   ► of this is about your own photography.

01:09:15 ◼   ► This is about coming in.

01:09:16 ◼   ► This is about learning more.

01:09:17 ◼   ► This is about growing, as opposed to,

01:09:20 ◼   ► this is about making money.

01:09:21 ◼   ► - I mean, and from my end, I think Flickr missed the boat

01:09:26 ◼   ► because of their inability to pivot to mobile quickly

01:09:29 ◼   ► and to make a really good app.

01:09:31 ◼   ► And then they lost that mind share,

01:09:36 ◼   ► and then Instagram just became the dominant player

01:09:39 ◼   ► in what it was for photographers,

01:09:41 ◼   ► how they grew their businesses.

01:09:42 ◼   ► This became this huge thing,

01:09:43 ◼   ► and this is before Facebook purchased them,

01:09:46 ◼   ► and this was 2010 is kinda when Instagram came on the scene.

01:09:51 ◼   ► And then they got bought by Facebook in 2012,

01:09:54 ◼   ► and I think Flickr was just, they were just slow.

01:09:58 ◼   ► And then I think they also maybe became slightly paralyzed

01:10:01 ◼   ► by having kind of an existing product

01:10:04 ◼   ► and having to make difficult choices

01:10:06 ◼   ► to streamline that product and let some of the stuff go

01:10:09 ◼   ► and refocus and refocus.

01:10:11 ◼   ► And so they just kinda kept building on it,

01:10:13 ◼   ► how products can get really overly bloated.

01:10:16 ◼   ► I mean, I'm thinking of Microsoft Ribbon UI.

01:10:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:10:21 ◼   ► - But they would just,

01:10:23 ◼   ► I think that became a challenge for Flickr

01:10:25 ◼   ► to deal with that, and then having a great community

01:10:27 ◼   ► and how to manage that.

01:10:29 ◼   ► I think it's difficult.

01:10:30 ◼   ► I had friends who worked there,

01:10:32 ◼   ► so I don't wanna, you know,

01:10:33 ◼   ► because it's difficult to manage that product.

01:10:37 ◼   ► But I think some of the leadership changes,

01:10:39 ◼   ► I think really just being purchased by Yahoo,

01:10:41 ◼   ► maybe not having the resources they needed

01:10:42 ◼   ► to do those things,

01:10:43 ◼   ► maybe having a difficult time making those bets

01:10:45 ◼   ► and choices and changes.

01:10:46 ◼   ► There's a lot of reasons that pile up,

01:10:47 ◼   ► but I loved it too.

01:10:49 ◼   ► I still have one of my closest friends

01:10:51 ◼   ► I met through Flickr, and she's still my friend today.

01:10:54 ◼   ► And I think that's disappointing

01:10:57 ◼   ► that those things had to go away.

01:11:00 ◼   ► Although it still exists,

01:11:02 ◼   ► it's just not anything that it was.

01:11:03 ◼   ► And so a lot of why I built Glass

01:11:07 ◼   ► and why we built Glass together

01:11:08 ◼   ► is to bring back those really positive vibes,

01:11:13 ◼   ► that stuff that happened there at that time.

01:11:15 ◼   ► - I do think, and Tom, I think as a product designer

01:11:19 ◼   ► and experience designer, really,

01:11:21 ◼   ► I know that we could do entire products together,

01:11:26 ◼   ► entire episodes about what designer means.

01:11:29 ◼   ► But when you think about things from the inside

01:11:33 ◼   ► and how they should be,

01:11:34 ◼   ► to me, one of the problems with Flickr always was,

01:11:37 ◼   ► and even though the people were good, friendly people

01:11:40 ◼   ► who clearly cared about design,

01:11:42 ◼   ► and really the founders like Stuart and Katarina

01:11:47 ◼   ► and all the early employees who I knew,

01:11:49 ◼   ► like Heather, I know Heather personally,

01:11:51 ◼   ► and they're good people who love to make fun,

01:11:55 ◼   ► simple things that you'd say,

01:11:57 ◼   ► "Oh, that's a joyful little design."

01:11:59 ◼   ► But Flickr itself was always confusing

01:12:03 ◼   ► in certain ways to me.

01:12:05 ◼   ► And there were totally different ways to do batch editing

01:12:08 ◼   ► where one of them was loaded up in,

01:12:11 ◼   ► it might've even been Flash Player at the time.

01:12:16 ◼   ► And there was two entirely different ways

01:12:19 ◼   ► to do batch editing and different ways to make things

01:12:23 ◼   ► that you would think of as an album.

01:12:26 ◼   ► And I would get so confused.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I'd be like, "Oh, I just came back from South by Southwest,

01:12:30 ◼   ► and I have a whole bunch of photos I would like to share

01:12:33 ◼   ► that these are all photos that are group events

01:12:36 ◼   ► and friends I see from all over the world

01:12:39 ◼   ► who came to South by Southwest.

01:12:40 ◼   ► I'd like to make a little album of 20 photos and share it."

01:12:43 ◼   ► And I'd be like, "How the hell did I do that the last time?

01:12:45 ◼   ► I just did it at Macworld a couple, eight months ago.

01:12:48 ◼   ► What the heck do I, how do I do it?"

01:12:50 ◼   ► And I'd get lost.

01:12:52 ◼   ► And I feel like that complexity eventually caught up to them

01:12:55 ◼   ► and really did catch up to them at the moment of mobile.

01:12:59 ◼   ► That's what I think is that the iPhone came out

01:13:05 ◼   ► and they just, it really, in hindsight,

01:13:10 ◼   ► it just maps to me as the iPhone comes out in middle 2007

01:13:15 ◼   ► and Flickr's relevance started declining.

01:13:20 ◼   ► And it really picked up and you could detect it

01:13:23 ◼   ► at the time around the iPhone 4, 4S, 2010, 2011,

01:13:28 ◼   ► when it became less of an oddity,

01:13:33 ◼   ► like, "Hey, you have an iPhone," right?

01:13:35 ◼   ► Which all of us who had iPhones in the early years

01:13:37 ◼   ► remember what that was like,

01:13:38 ◼   ► where you would just be in the grocery store

01:13:40 ◼   ► and a random person would say, "Hey, is that an iPhone?"

01:13:43 ◼   ► Because I was doing my shopping list,

01:13:44 ◼   ► and I was like, "Yeah."

01:13:45 ◼   ► They had no idea.

01:13:46 ◼   ► It wasn't like somebody local who was like,

01:13:47 ◼   ► "You're John Gruber, the guy who writes "Daring Fire."

01:13:49 ◼   ► They had no idea who I was.

01:13:50 ◼   ► They were just like, "Hey, what do you think of the iPhone?"

01:13:53 ◼   ► But around that time where everybody started having an iPhone

01:13:56 ◼   ► it's, their relevance went down.

01:13:58 ◼   ► And I think back, it is, it's a sign of great CEO leadership

01:14:03 ◼   ► to be able to make a decision like Zuckerberg did to say,

01:14:09 ◼   ► "We have this thing, it's a runaway hit called Facebook

01:14:13 ◼   ► that is designed as a website you go to on a PC or a Mac

01:14:19 ◼   ► and load up in a browser window.

01:14:21 ◼   ► And we've got all these features that are basically,

01:14:25 ◼   ► roughly, if you took like,

01:14:27 ◼   ► if you were gonna do your prototypes on paper,

01:14:29 ◼   ► you could use like an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper,

01:14:31 ◼   ► but it's the whole paper.

01:14:33 ◼   ► We're gonna redesign this for something

01:14:36 ◼   ► on a three and a half inch diagonal touchscreen

01:14:38 ◼   ► and all of the other limits of a phone versus a browser,

01:14:43 ◼   ► the slow internet of cellular, blah, blah, blah."

01:14:47 ◼   ► And they did it.

01:14:48 ◼   ► And, you know, Bill Gates had a famous moment like that

01:14:50 ◼   ► in 1997, where he wrote a company-wide memo at Microsoft

01:14:55 ◼   ► that they were gonna stop everything,

01:14:57 ◼   ► were rebuilding the whole company around the internet.

01:15:00 ◼   ► And, you know, for people who weren't around at the time

01:15:04 ◼   ► and paying attention to technology at the time,

01:15:05 ◼   ► you could say, "Well, that seems ridiculous

01:15:07 ◼   ► that it took until 1997 for Microsoft to do that."

01:15:11 ◼   ► But it really was true that up until that time,

01:15:15 ◼   ► computer networks were like proprietary things, right?

01:15:19 ◼   ► Like PC networks in the enterprise

01:15:21 ◼   ► were like based on Novell technology

01:15:23 ◼   ► and becoming a Novell certified engineer

01:15:26 ◼   ► was a way to get a career in IT.

01:15:29 ◼   ► And the idea that everybody would just use this thing

01:15:32 ◼   ► that was completely open source, what the hell is that?

01:15:35 ◼   ► And there's no company that owns the rights

01:15:37 ◼   ► to the HTTP spec and we're gonna do it.

01:15:41 ◼   ► And, you know, pivot the whole company from,

01:15:43 ◼   ► forget about proprietary networking,

01:15:45 ◼   ► we're gonna build for the web,

01:15:46 ◼   ► we're gonna make a popular web browser, blah, blah, blah.

01:15:48 ◼   ► Apple had moments like that under Steve Jobs.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Flickr never made that moment.

01:15:52 ◼   ► They never had that.

01:15:53 ◼   ► And I don't know if it was possible, right?

01:15:55 ◼   ► But I think it definitely would have required them

01:15:58 ◼   ► to cut a lot of features

01:15:59 ◼   ► and it doesn't seem like they ever had that in them.

01:16:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think that's, you could point to that too.

01:16:07 ◼   ► And I often, like I don't, like I personally,

01:16:10 ◼   ► I'm not wild about the metaverse future

01:16:13 ◼   ► or the change to meta, but I often wonder if that is,

01:16:18 ◼   ► like I've been, you know, I worked with Marc for four years

01:16:21 ◼   ► and it was a small team.

01:16:23 ◼   ► I was like, there was only 10 designers

01:16:25 ◼   ► when I was at Facebook when we started, so when I started,

01:16:27 ◼   ► and it was small and I was in charge of mobile.

01:16:29 ◼   ► Like it was just this little thing in the corner, right?

01:16:31 ◼   ► Like it was, everybody had Blackberries

01:16:33 ◼   ► when I started at Facebook.

01:16:34 ◼   ► So it was like 2009 and I was like, I got an iPhone

01:16:39 ◼   ► 'cause I was like, I'm not having a Blackberry.

01:16:40 ◼   ► You just don't want, you know, like it was like, it was fine.

01:16:43 ◼   ► But like, you know, I was wrong plenty with, you know,

01:16:47 ◼   ► bringing my product ideas to Marc

01:16:50 ◼   ► and him choosing a different one.

01:16:51 ◼   ► So I have no idea where that'll go,

01:16:54 ◼   ► but we could be looking back and be like, well, yes,

01:16:56 ◼   ► you look, they pivoted the whole company

01:16:57 ◼   ► and that was the right call.

01:16:59 ◼   ► I just, I don't really want it to go that way

01:17:02 ◼   ► in the internet.

01:17:03 ◼   ► You know, like I'm just not wild about the metaverse,

01:17:04 ◼   ► but that's just a personal thing.

01:17:06 ◼   ► Not because it's, might be where we're going

01:17:09 ◼   ► and maybe I'm just old.

01:17:10 ◼   ► So I haven't figured that out yet.

01:17:14 ◼   ► - You've just cursed, I guarantee you now,

01:17:16 ◼   ► the next time I have you guys on the show,

01:17:18 ◼   ► we'll be talking about the new version of Glass

01:17:20 ◼   ► for the Apple AR headset.

01:17:22 ◼   ► - Oh, I know, and I'm gonna be, I'm just,

01:17:26 ◼   ► I know that it's coming.

01:17:28 ◼   ► - God, do we have to do NFTs now?

01:17:30 ◼   ► Like, come on.

01:17:31 ◼   ► - No, no, we're not going there.

01:17:33 ◼   ► But, but, okay.

01:17:35 ◼   ► - I'm still hopeful.

01:17:36 ◼   ► I've just wanted to mention, I put this in print.

01:17:39 ◼   ► It is my sincere hope.

01:17:41 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that if they do use the M word,

01:17:44 ◼   ► that it means we're in trouble.

01:17:46 ◼   ► But I have, I'm very optimistic that whenever Apple

01:17:48 ◼   ► does have an event where they say,

01:17:50 ◼   ► and here's our next thing, it's this headset for AR and VR,

01:17:53 ◼   ► I don't think they're gonna use the word metaverse.

01:17:56 ◼   ► And I'm not saying--

01:17:58 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, they're gonna kill it.

01:17:59 ◼   ► We're getting a new word,

01:18:01 ◼   ► and we're all gonna use it immediately.

01:18:02 ◼   ► It's gonna be beautiful, I can't wait.

01:18:04 ◼   ► - The new word, we still get fearful

01:18:08 ◼   ► that there's gonna be some AR headset

01:18:09 ◼   ► and they're gonna call it glass or something.

01:18:11 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:18:12 ◼   ► - You know, like, and we,

01:18:14 ◼   ► Daniel, every time there's an Apple event,

01:18:17 ◼   ► we watch it and hold our breath because we just don't,

01:18:21 ◼   ► you know, the reason it's called glass

01:18:23 ◼   ► is for the transparency of like,

01:18:24 ◼   ► what we're trying to do and all that,

01:18:25 ◼   ► but also the slang term that photographers use

01:18:27 ◼   ► to call their lenses, they call it glass.

01:18:29 ◼   ► So that's where it came from.

01:18:31 ◼   ► And my hope was always that, you know,

01:18:32 ◼   ► Google Glass really just poisoned the well for that word,

01:18:36 ◼   ► for anything related to AR, VR.

01:18:38 ◼   ► But who knows?

01:18:39 ◼   ► - I hope so.

01:18:40 ◼   ► - If I wanted a good time.

01:18:42 ◼   ► - I like your odds.

01:18:43 ◼   ► I like your odds that nobody else is gonna wanna use it

01:18:47 ◼   ► and Apple certainly wouldn't

01:18:48 ◼   ► 'cause Google had sort of spoiled it

01:18:50 ◼   ► and it was there for the taking

01:18:52 ◼   ► for an entirely different concept, right?

01:18:54 ◼   ► The app, it works perfectly.

01:18:56 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:18:57 ◼   ► - I think your odds are good.

01:18:57 ◼   ► All right, let me take a break here

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01:21:37 ◼   ► Home stretch.

01:21:40 ◼   ► I want to talk about the,

01:21:42 ◼   ► we've talked about the iOS only angle,

01:21:44 ◼   ► which is one aspect that limits the size of the market.

01:21:49 ◼   ► If you're on Android right now, it's tough luck.

01:21:51 ◼   ► I happen to notice,

01:21:53 ◼   ► I haven't written about it on Daring Fireball,

01:21:55 ◼   ► but I subscribed to the print version of The New Yorker

01:21:58 ◼   ► and I noticed their inside back cover

01:22:01 ◼   ► of the most recent issue was a house ad.

01:22:04 ◼   ► Presumably it just went unsold.

01:22:06 ◼   ► And so it's an ad for The New Yorker's own New Yorker app.

01:22:11 ◼   ► And it just says, read all the articles

01:22:16 ◼   ► and play games and puzzles on The New Yorker app.

01:22:19 ◼   ► And then on the bottom,

01:22:21 ◼   ► it just says it has the available on the app store button.

01:22:24 ◼   ► And then there's a QR code you can scan.

01:22:27 ◼   ► But it immediately jumped out to me.

01:22:29 ◼   ► They don't have a button for the Play Store.

01:22:31 ◼   ► And I scanned the QR code even to see,

01:22:34 ◼   ► does it take you to a picker

01:22:35 ◼   ► where you can pick Android or iOS?

01:22:37 ◼   ► And no, it's just the iOS version,

01:22:40 ◼   ► which I thought was strange for something

01:22:43 ◼   ► that you wouldn't think would be technically limited.

01:22:44 ◼   ► But as much as some people,

01:22:47 ◼   ► and Adam Masseri even pointed out Android is bigger,

01:22:51 ◼   ► but I suspect that Android,

01:22:53 ◼   ► that's sort of throwing shade at Apple

01:22:56 ◼   ► in terms of its importance to Instagram.

01:22:59 ◼   ► Like they may have more users on Android,

01:23:01 ◼   ► but I really doubt they think the Android audience

01:23:03 ◼   ► is more important than their iOS audience.

01:23:06 ◼   ► It's different and people don't, we don't talk about it.

01:23:08 ◼   ► We collectively don't talk about it,

01:23:10 ◼   ► but it's not like a completely,

01:23:14 ◼   ► it's not even vaguely a random distribution

01:23:17 ◼   ► of the interests and like artistic inclination, for example,

01:23:21 ◼   ► of iOS and Android users, right?

01:23:23 ◼   ► Like it's not surprising to me that Glass is iOS only.

01:23:28 ◼   ► It would be if with the exact same level of attention

01:23:34 ◼   ► and the exact same design, as much as it makes sense,

01:23:37 ◼   ► if it were Android only.

01:23:38 ◼   ► That would seem odd to me.

01:23:39 ◼   ► I've never, 'cause then all of a sudden I'd say,

01:23:42 ◼   ► it would be the first time in at this point, 15 years,

01:23:46 ◼   ► where I thought, wow, here's a cool thing for Android

01:23:49 ◼   ► that I'm missing out on, 'cause I'm not an Android user.

01:23:52 ◼   ► That has never happened to me.

01:23:54 ◼   ► I mean, and I mean that without exaggeration.

01:23:56 ◼   ► And I say that, it's like, well, of course,

01:23:58 ◼   ► John Gruber, he's a big fan of Apple's platforms,

01:24:01 ◼   ► but as a lifelong, or at least my entire lifelong

01:24:04 ◼   ► Apple computer user, going back to Apple II

01:24:07 ◼   ► when I was growing up, there were plenty of times

01:24:10 ◼   ► when I was jealous, envious of things that were PC only.

01:24:14 ◼   ► Certainly games, when I was more into games,

01:24:17 ◼   ► certainly can't be a lifelong Mac user

01:24:19 ◼   ► who had any interest at video games in your life

01:24:21 ◼   ► and not have been jealous of the PC gaming market.

01:24:25 ◼   ► And in like the late '90s of when the Mac was in trouble

01:24:30 ◼   ► and Apple was correctly described as beleaguered

01:24:32 ◼   ► and the whole, all right, Steve Jobs is back

01:24:36 ◼   ► and we're gonna build this new thing,

01:24:37 ◼   ► but it's gonna take us four years

01:24:39 ◼   ► to take what we bought from Next and ship it.

01:24:42 ◼   ► And even when we do, it's gonna be kind of slow

01:24:44 ◼   ► and take a couple more years to really get good.

01:24:47 ◼   ► There were things like Napster that were Windows only.

01:24:51 ◼   ► And then it took months and months,

01:24:53 ◼   ► and then third parties who were unaffiliated

01:24:55 ◼   ► with the actual Napster group,

01:24:56 ◼   ► there was a thing called Maxtr

01:24:57 ◼   ► that was a Mac Napster client,

01:24:59 ◼   ► and it was actually kind of fun

01:25:00 ◼   ► and really well done and made by,

01:25:02 ◼   ► but you missed out on stuff.

01:25:04 ◼   ► It wasn't true.

01:25:05 ◼   ► With the iPhone, it's not really true.

01:25:08 ◼   ► And then the other factor is that you guys are using

01:25:12 ◼   ► Sign In with Apple as your one and only

01:25:15 ◼   ► credential system so far.

01:25:17 ◼   ► And I'd love to hear your thinking behind that.

01:25:21 ◼   ► Because I think some people out there,

01:25:23 ◼   ► let's face it, with some of the criticisms

01:25:25 ◼   ► of the App Store and Apple's share that they take,

01:25:30 ◼   ► there are some people who in today's world would think,

01:25:34 ◼   ► launch a new thing, iOS only,

01:25:36 ◼   ► and build on Sign In with Apple as your identity.

01:25:40 ◼   ► And is it true?

01:25:41 ◼   ► Are you guys, for subscriptions,

01:25:43 ◼   ► they all go through the App Store, correct?

01:25:46 ◼   ► - That's correct, yeah. - Right.

01:25:49 ◼   ► So talk about that. - We leaned in heavily.

01:25:51 ◼   ► - Well, talk about that, because I think that's very,

01:25:54 ◼   ► it's a different perspective than a lot of people

01:25:56 ◼   ► would come up with for something that launched in 2021.

01:25:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think the, well, we're very lean.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Not to borrow, but there's just not,

01:26:08 ◼   ► we had to choose what we could build

01:26:11 ◼   ► and what we would have to do in building

01:26:12 ◼   ► all of the Sign In stuff up front.

01:26:15 ◼   ► We could leverage Apple's tools,

01:26:17 ◼   ► and that really was helpful for us.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Also the timing of it, I mean, like we were watching,

01:26:22 ◼   ► as Basecamp, 37 Signals was like,

01:26:27 ◼   ► going through their whole thing with the new mail client,

01:26:30 ◼   ► forgetting the name all of a sudden.

01:26:31 ◼   ► - Hey, hey, hey. - Hey.

01:26:34 ◼   ► - Hey, hey, thank you, yes.

01:26:35 ◼   ► And you're watching that and then seeing the 15%

01:26:38 ◼   ► go down, it's really opened it up for us

01:26:40 ◼   ► and allowed us to do it.

01:26:41 ◼   ► We don't, like, we're definitely wanting,

01:26:45 ◼   ► as we move to the web, like, to look into alternative

01:26:50 ◼   ► methods for logging in and signing in.

01:26:53 ◼   ► Mayor Stéphane, my co-founder and I,

01:26:55 ◼   ► we've been talking about it heavily

01:26:57 ◼   ► and what we should do and like alternative payments,

01:26:59 ◼   ► but like launching with Apple,

01:27:01 ◼   ► we wanted a premium experience for a premium product.

01:27:04 ◼   ► We knew that it's what we used,

01:27:06 ◼   ► it's what we were used to using,

01:27:08 ◼   ► it's what we know, it's what we love.

01:27:10 ◼   ► We wanted an iPad app, we wanted to play by the rules,

01:27:13 ◼   ► to, you know, work well with Apple,

01:27:16 ◼   ► and so we went there first.

01:27:18 ◼   ► It didn't seem to make sense in 2021 to launch,

01:27:22 ◼   ► like, our type of product as a web product first

01:27:25 ◼   ► and then bring it to the mobile experiences.

01:27:27 ◼   ► Like, it felt like it needed to be on a phone first.

01:27:30 ◼   ► Mobile first seemed extremely clear to us,

01:27:34 ◼   ► and so the logic just followed.

01:27:36 ◼   ► Also, it's just what we could build.

01:27:38 ◼   ► Like, we had an iOS engineer,

01:27:40 ◼   ► maybe we didn't have an Android engineer,

01:27:42 ◼   ► we just don't have a team for it.

01:27:43 ◼   ► It's not to say that we wouldn't try to bring a product

01:27:46 ◼   ► there to them at some point.

01:27:47 ◼   ► We have a lot of people who would like it to happen,

01:27:50 ◼   ► and I think we would like to.

01:27:51 ◼   ► It's just we don't have the expertise in-house.

01:27:56 ◼   ► - It's also an abuse factor, right?

01:27:58 ◼   ► Like, it is, requiring to do Apple sign-on only

01:28:02 ◼   ► is a massive load off of my mind and my plate

01:28:07 ◼   ► because you are you, right?

01:28:10 ◼   ► Like, you signed up as yourself,

01:28:12 ◼   ► you have your credit card attached,

01:28:14 ◼   ► that's that, we have the single sign-on, that's great.

01:28:18 ◼   ► It's next to impossible to create more than one spam account.

01:28:21 ◼   ► It's next to impossible to abuse the system, create,

01:28:25 ◼   ► we have a two-week free trial

01:28:27 ◼   ► at the beginning of every new member subscribing,

01:28:30 ◼   ► and that two weeks could easily be filled with spam

01:28:34 ◼   ► and then deleted if that was just a email, right?

01:28:38 ◼   ► Like, a spam account could,

01:28:40 ◼   ► like I mentioned earlier that we've only removed

01:28:43 ◼   ► like three accounts, one of those accounts

01:28:44 ◼   ► was a brand account who signed up

01:28:47 ◼   ► and tried to follow the entire platform.

01:28:49 ◼   ► Their user profile was their logo,

01:28:52 ◼   ► they had their link out to their new app,

01:28:55 ◼   ► and then they just tried to follow

01:28:56 ◼   ► every single photographer on Glass.

01:28:59 ◼   ► There's a fun little screen at the very end of Glass

01:29:01 ◼   ► if you follow all, whatever it is,

01:29:03 ◼   ► like 10,000, 15,000 accounts,

01:29:05 ◼   ► where it says you followed,

01:29:07 ◼   ► we need to do a better job of showing you people.

01:29:09 ◼   ► And like, they were trying to find that screen

01:29:12 ◼   ► that no one has seen because it's ridiculous

01:29:14 ◼   ► to follow all of the thousands and thousands of accounts,

01:29:18 ◼   ► and we had to remove them, right?

01:29:19 ◼   ► And that was it.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Then they were gone.

01:29:21 ◼   ► They, you know, they didn't show back up.

01:29:24 ◼   ► We updated and released a quick policy around,

01:29:26 ◼   ► hey, no brand accounts

01:29:27 ◼   ► if you're trying to sell their photographers, right?

01:29:29 ◼   ► Like, if you're a photographer who operates under a brand,

01:29:31 ◼   ► come on in, you're good to go, but no brand accounts.

01:29:35 ◼   ► And since then, we've had to remove zero brand accounts

01:29:37 ◼   ► 'cause it didn't work, right?

01:29:39 ◼   ► Like, the attention that they were trying to garner

01:29:43 ◼   ► on our platform didn't work.

01:29:44 ◼   ► And that's huge, and I attribute that partially

01:29:49 ◼   ► to having Apple only ID for our sign-in.

01:29:53 ◼   ► - I recall the first time that,

01:29:55 ◼   ► I mean, the privacy angle from Apple too.

01:29:57 ◼   ► Oh, sorry.

01:29:58 ◼   ► - No, no, go ahead.

01:29:59 ◼   ► No, go ahead, go ahead, Tom.

01:30:00 ◼   ► - Oh, I just, I thought that, you know,

01:30:04 ◼   ► I mean, we were gonna, we wanted to use sign-in with Apple

01:30:06 ◼   ► because of the, you know, also the privacy angle

01:30:08 ◼   ► that aligned with our goals as a company.

01:30:11 ◼   ► You know, like we wanna, you know,

01:30:13 ◼   ► we don't wanna track your data, we don't wanna,

01:30:14 ◼   ► so there's like, you know, Google sign-in

01:30:16 ◼   ► and Facebook sign-in, and, you know, we just,

01:30:19 ◼   ► we chose Apple's because of the platform we started on,

01:30:22 ◼   ► but also just the privacy was really important to us,

01:30:25 ◼   ► and, you know, people can sign up,

01:30:27 ◼   ► and it causes us headaches sometimes

01:30:29 ◼   ► 'cause like email addresses and connections,

01:30:30 ◼   ► but you have the hide, when you sign in with Apple,

01:30:32 ◼   ► you know, you could hide your email address,