18 ms·

Slightly off topic, does anyone know if the portrayal of Jack Dorsey in Hatching Twitter is accurate?

__abc 10y ago
It's been so long since I read that book. How was he portrayed again? I vaguely remember it being self focused, whiney, and that his greatest product out of all that, was his self image. I could also be WAAAAAY off.
wiremine 10y ago
I'm something like twitter user 1019, and joined on day 2 or 3 after it was launch. Before twitter was Odeo, a podcasting company. Their blog post announcing twitter back in the day went something like this: 1. Odeo isn't doing well. 2. We broke into small teams to brainstorm ideas. 3. Jack, one of our devs, had this idea for SMS messaging. 4. Oh, and it also had a web interface. 5. It was quick to build, so here you go (link to twitter). 6. Tell us what you think. It was, IMHO, incredibly boring at that point, and I didn't use it again for years. That's my personal recollection of how it was announced. I think history was rewritten a few times maybe? Edit: Oops, it was NOT doing well. Big difference, sorry.
- _kyran 10y ago
  Slightly off topic again, but what was Odeo like? I see it referenced everywhere, but what exactly where they trying to do, and what worked/didn't work?
  - jonknee 10y ago
    > I see it referenced everywhere, but what exactly where they trying to do, and what worked/didn't work? It was discovery for podcasts and was destroyed when iTunes included podcasts.
    - uxp100 10y ago
      They also had Odeo messages, which was a replacement for the Seattle free Voice Mail numbers that Podcasts often used for audio feedback. For those who had a mic, but didn't want to fiddle with recording software and encoding and emailing an mp3. It was an awful flash app that rarely worked. Mostly a good way to freeze your browser.
  - wiremine 10y ago
    As mentioned, it was a discovery tool for podcasts that. I don't recall the timing with podcasting support in iTunes, but I recall them having problems before iTunes started supporting it: it didn't seem to ever have a business model. That said, it was the wild west of podcasting back then, so any discovery was helpful. I remember one of the first podcasts I listened to was just Adam Curry driving around Amsterdam smoking and swearing at people. It was pretty awesome.
  - throwaway_xx9 10y ago
    I had a chance to hear a lecture on Odeo by either Jack or one of the Odeo founders back in the day at Yahoo HQ. He looked and seemed like a typical know-nothing 20-something founder. And then Odeo was crushed and I never heard about it again.
angryasian 10y ago
https://www.quora.com/How-did-Noah-Glass-get-forced-out-of-Twitter https://www.quora.com/How-did-Noah-Glass-get-forced-out-of-T... I don't see anything in the article about the hatching of twitter but you should read more about the accounts from noah glass.
miraj 10y ago
Its not off-topic at all. the portrayal of Ev Williams in this article looked to me as very disingenuous & deceitful. Ev is not just another board member + co-founder. He has as much stake in seeing Twitter succeed as anyone else. Without his whole-hearted support at Odeo dont think Twitter would have gotten off the ground. We gotta remember Ev founded Blogger, before Twitter, and Medium after. So he certainly has perspectives on how communications + media evolving in the digital era. Edit: Typos + Syntax!

__abc 10y ago

It's been so long since I read that book. How was he portrayed again? I vaguely remember it being self focused, whiney, and that his greatest product out of all that, was his self image. I could also be WAAAAAY off.

wiremine 10y ago

I'm something like twitter user 1019, and joined on day 2 or 3 after it was launch. Before twitter was Odeo, a podcasting company. Their blog post announcing twitter back in the day went something like this: 1. Odeo isn't doing well. 2. We broke into small teams to brainstorm ideas. 3. Jack, one of our devs, had this idea for SMS messaging. 4. Oh, and it also had a web interface. 5. It was quick to build, so here you go (link to twitter). 6. Tell us what you think. It was, IMHO, incredibly boring at that point, and I didn't use it again for years. That's my personal recollection of how it was announced. I think history was rewritten a few times maybe? Edit: Oops, it was NOT doing well. Big difference, sorry.

_kyran 10y ago
Slightly off topic again, but what was Odeo like? I see it referenced everywhere, but what exactly where they trying to do, and what worked/didn't work?
- jonknee 10y ago
  > I see it referenced everywhere, but what exactly where they trying to do, and what worked/didn't work? It was discovery for podcasts and was destroyed when iTunes included podcasts.
  - uxp100 10y ago
    They also had Odeo messages, which was a replacement for the Seattle free Voice Mail numbers that Podcasts often used for audio feedback. For those who had a mic, but didn't want to fiddle with recording software and encoding and emailing an mp3. It was an awful flash app that rarely worked. Mostly a good way to freeze your browser.
- wiremine 10y ago
  As mentioned, it was a discovery tool for podcasts that. I don't recall the timing with podcasting support in iTunes, but I recall them having problems before iTunes started supporting it: it didn't seem to ever have a business model. That said, it was the wild west of podcasting back then, so any discovery was helpful. I remember one of the first podcasts I listened to was just Adam Curry driving around Amsterdam smoking and swearing at people. It was pretty awesome.
- throwaway_xx9 10y ago
  I had a chance to hear a lecture on Odeo by either Jack or one of the Odeo founders back in the day at Yahoo HQ. He looked and seemed like a typical know-nothing 20-something founder. And then Odeo was crushed and I never heard about it again.

angryasian 10y ago

https://www.quora.com/How-did-Noah-Glass-get-forced-out-of-Twitter https://www.quora.com/How-did-Noah-Glass-get-forced-out-of-T... I don't see anything in the article about the hatching of twitter but you should read more about the accounts from noah glass.

miraj 10y ago

Its not off-topic at all. the portrayal of Ev Williams in this article looked to me as very disingenuous & deceitful. Ev is not just another board member + co-founder. He has as much stake in seeing Twitter succeed as anyone else. Without his whole-hearted support at Odeo dont think Twitter would have gotten off the ground. We gotta remember Ev founded Blogger, before Twitter, and Medium after. So he certainly has perspectives on how communications + media evolving in the digital era. Edit: Typos + Syntax!