August 4, 2008 • 5 mins
In May of 2008, Twitter received another 15 million dollars in venture capital funding. This increase reflects the growing interest in micro blogging -- messages with 160 characters or less. Check out our HowStuffWorks article to learn more about Twitter.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hey there,
and welcome to the podcast. This is Jonathan Strickland. I'm
a writer here and How Stuff Works and with me
is editor extraordinaire Chris Palette. Hi there, we got a
(00:21):
real tweet of a podcast for you. Dude. I'm sorry,
So we're talking about Twitter today. Yeah, we have an
article called how Twitter Works, but in a lot of
cases recently it's been sort of how Twitter doesn't work? Right?
There is there's a certain graphic that pops up when
Twitter is out of service. And I just got to
(00:42):
hear what the name of it was the other day, Chris,
come on share with us. It's the fail whale. Is
the fail whale. It's it's cheerful looking whale that tells
you that sorry, Twitter is not working just now. Um,
recently it's gotten a little bit better there. There haven't
been as many crashes, and we think that that might
have something to do with an a recent influx of
(01:04):
cash in the Twitter coffers. That's right. In May they
received fifteen million dollars in venture capital funding. Um, and
that increases there they're total to about twenty millions, so
that gives them a lot more capacity. And the reason
this is an issue is because people are starting to
take to these microblogs, which are basically a hundred and
(01:25):
sixty characters. Yeah. Yeah, and so basically you have to summarize,
you know, what you're saying in a very very short time.
And it gives people an opportunity to blurt out a
quick thought. Um. And it's very popular. It's taken off
so much that Twitter has been showing the fail whale
to many of us now right right, and and it
spans beyond just the internet. Uh. Twitter interfaces with cell phones.
(01:47):
It's using SMS technology, the short messaging service where you
you send these short messages. It's just like sending a
text message to someone else, except this case you're sending
a text message to a network of people. So when
a lot of people are sending lots of text messages
to large networks, that puts a lot of strain on
the system. But um, it's it's another important thing to
(02:09):
note that the venture capital that's going into Twitter is
really the main source. In fact, the really the only
source of significant revenue that Twitter is. It's not even
really generating revenue, it's just coming in on investments because
Twitter is very proud of the fact that they don't
have a business plan. Well, you know, there are a
(02:29):
lot of competitors out there that are taking advantage of
the frequent fail whales, like um um Pounds, which is
uh something created by a number of people, including one
of the founders of dig Kevin Rose right right, um Clerk,
which is created by a group of people call who
call themselves the A Team. Um Identica, which is a
(02:51):
brand new version from Canada which is completely open sourced.
Um you know, and I can't I can't figure out
whether the j is pronounced ji q or hi q.
But they were gobbled up by Google right getting ready
to run themselves in the Google App Engine, and they
haven't released their new version. But all these people are
sort of waiting in line to be the next Twitter
(03:12):
if Twitter manages to uh if they if they collapse
under the weight of all the popularity. And it's actually
interesting some of the some of the biggest Twitter cheerleaders
have kind of moved on to talking about other services
after seeing the fail whale one too many times. So
this is definitely a real concern for Twitter. Um it's
(03:33):
also showing us that that this microblog thing, it doesn't
look like it's going away. It's really really popular. And
it kind of surprised me because the first time I
thought about it was like, why would I want to
know when my friends going out to shop for new shoes?
But people are using it for lots of things, to
to organize impromptu gatherings like Hey, who wants to go
see a movie tonight? Or or even following the news.
(03:56):
There are many news organizations that have Twitter feeds now
and they give breaking news on you You hear about
breaking news before it hits any websites. Oh sure, Well,
I mean that gives you know, added venues for the
citizen journalists as they call them, to uh, you know,
to tweet there happened to be out on the on
(04:17):
the sidewalk while something happens, and someone can post it
to Twitter, and the news travels very quickly, faster than
the media outlets can broadcast it. At the speed of life.
You might say. As a matter of fact, I subscribe
on my Twitter account to a number of journalists and
photographers who happened to be out and when they see something,
they'll they'll post something to their Twitter and they can
(04:38):
even get you out of jail. Uh. James carl Buck
who was a grad student in Egypt, he got arrested
while photograph photographing an anti government demonstration. He tweet tweeted
the word arrested and sent it out to his followers,
and their response meant that he was freed shortly thereafter.
(05:00):
So it's definitely gots uses um for listeners out there
who are curious. I have a Twitter account. If you
want to follow me, it's Twitter dot com slash John
Strickland that's j O N S t R I c
K L A n D. And of course, if you
how stuff Works itself has a Twitter account. If you
follow how stuff Works underscore um, that's the official stuff
(05:26):
works Twitter. So I guess we'll have to tweet you
guys later in the meantime. If you want to learn more,
you can always read how Twitter Works at the website
how stuff works dot com. Thanks a lot for listening
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
it how stuff works dot com? Let us know what
you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff
(05:48):
works dot com, Brought to you by the reinvented two
thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hey there,
and welcome to the podcast. This is Jonathan Strickland. I'm
a writer here and How Stuff Works and with me
is editor extraordinaire Chris Palette. Hi there, we got a
(00:21):
real tweet of a podcast for you. Dude. I'm sorry,
So we're talking about Twitter today. Yeah, we have an
article called how Twitter Works, but in a lot of
cases recently it's been sort of how Twitter doesn't work? Right?
There is there's a certain graphic that pops up when
Twitter is out of service. And I just got to
(00:42):
hear what the name of it was the other day, Chris,
come on share with us. It's the fail whale. Is
the fail whale. It's it's cheerful looking whale that tells
you that sorry, Twitter is not working just now. Um,
recently it's gotten a little bit better there. There haven't
been as many crashes, and we think that that might
have something to do with an a recent influx of
(01:04):
cash in the Twitter coffers. That's right. In May they
received fifteen million dollars in venture capital funding. Um, and
that increases there they're total to about twenty millions, so
that gives them a lot more capacity. And the reason
this is an issue is because people are starting to
take to these microblogs, which are basically a hundred and
(01:25):
sixty characters. Yeah. Yeah, and so basically you have to summarize,
you know, what you're saying in a very very short time.
And it gives people an opportunity to blurt out a
quick thought. Um. And it's very popular. It's taken off
so much that Twitter has been showing the fail whale
to many of us now right right, and and it
spans beyond just the internet. Uh. Twitter interfaces with cell phones.
(01:47):
It's using SMS technology, the short messaging service where you
you send these short messages. It's just like sending a
text message to someone else, except this case you're sending
a text message to a network of people. So when
a lot of people are sending lots of text messages
to large networks, that puts a lot of strain on
the system. But um, it's it's another important thing to
(02:09):
note that the venture capital that's going into Twitter is
really the main source. In fact, the really the only
source of significant revenue that Twitter is. It's not even
really generating revenue, it's just coming in on investments because
Twitter is very proud of the fact that they don't
have a business plan. Well, you know, there are a
(02:29):
lot of competitors out there that are taking advantage of
the frequent fail whales, like um um Pounds, which is
uh something created by a number of people, including one
of the founders of dig Kevin Rose right right, um Clerk,
which is created by a group of people call who
call themselves the A Team. Um Identica, which is a
(02:51):
brand new version from Canada which is completely open sourced.
Um you know, and I can't I can't figure out
whether the j is pronounced ji q or hi q.
But they were gobbled up by Google right getting ready
to run themselves in the Google App Engine, and they
haven't released their new version. But all these people are
sort of waiting in line to be the next Twitter
(03:12):
if Twitter manages to uh if they if they collapse
under the weight of all the popularity. And it's actually
interesting some of the some of the biggest Twitter cheerleaders
have kind of moved on to talking about other services
after seeing the fail whale one too many times. So
this is definitely a real concern for Twitter. Um it's
(03:33):
also showing us that that this microblog thing, it doesn't
look like it's going away. It's really really popular. And
it kind of surprised me because the first time I
thought about it was like, why would I want to
know when my friends going out to shop for new shoes?
But people are using it for lots of things, to
to organize impromptu gatherings like Hey, who wants to go
see a movie tonight? Or or even following the news.
(03:56):
There are many news organizations that have Twitter feeds now
and they give breaking news on you You hear about
breaking news before it hits any websites. Oh sure, Well,
I mean that gives you know, added venues for the
citizen journalists as they call them, to uh, you know,
to tweet there happened to be out on the on
(04:17):
the sidewalk while something happens, and someone can post it
to Twitter, and the news travels very quickly, faster than
the media outlets can broadcast it. At the speed of life.
You might say. As a matter of fact, I subscribe
on my Twitter account to a number of journalists and
photographers who happened to be out and when they see something,
they'll they'll post something to their Twitter and they can
(04:38):
even get you out of jail. Uh. James carl Buck
who was a grad student in Egypt, he got arrested
while photograph photographing an anti government demonstration. He tweet tweeted
the word arrested and sent it out to his followers,
and their response meant that he was freed shortly thereafter.
(05:00):
So it's definitely gots uses um for listeners out there
who are curious. I have a Twitter account. If you
want to follow me, it's Twitter dot com slash John
Strickland that's j O N S t R I c
K L A n D. And of course, if you
how stuff Works itself has a Twitter account. If you
follow how stuff Works underscore um, that's the official stuff
(05:26):
works Twitter. So I guess we'll have to tweet you
guys later in the meantime. If you want to learn more,
you can always read how Twitter Works at the website
how stuff works dot com. Thanks a lot for listening
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
it how stuff works dot com? Let us know what
you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff
(05:48):
works dot com, Brought to you by the reinvented two
thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, Are you
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