WEBVTT

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MySpace. Yeah, we're talking about that website.

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MySpace had a hole in it that let you override

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your own profile with, well, whatever you wanted.

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I think it probably wasn't supposed to work that

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way. Nobody ever fixed it. And it accidentally

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taught an entire generation how to do web design.

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There was a text file. That lived on my home

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computer back in high school. Just sitting there

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on the desktop. I can't for the life of me Remember

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what the file was called, but if you opened it

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it probably looked like absolute nonsense You

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know to my parents it might as well had been

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written in another language You had things in

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there like hex codes blocks of HTML maybe some

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CSS no labels no type of organization. No, none

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of that. Just chunks of code that I had grabbed

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off of other people's pages and hoarded it like

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that dragon in the hobbit who hoarded all the

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gold. The file was probably one of the most important

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documents of my high school time. I had a lot

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of good notes in that thing. Couldn't tell you

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where that file went now, but... Uh, but I'm

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not taking questions on that. Quick disclaimer

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before I get going here. All of this is my opinion,

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my memory, my take. I'm Tyler. Welcome to the

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podcast. Let's talk about MySpace. Not the, uh,

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top eight drama where if you rearranged your

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friends, people would lose their mind on what

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it could mean. And we're not talking about Tom

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being everybody's. First friend, but actually

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speaking of Tom Did you know he's still out there?

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He's on Facebook and Instagram. He did some photos

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back in 2011 At the Burning Man festival, and

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I think he's on threads now, too. I think or

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he was I don't remember but also this isn't going

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to be a It's not it's not going to be a funeral

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about myspace because the internet's already

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done that a thousand times over No, we're not

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gonna rehash that I want to get into the single

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biggest thing that MySpace had going for it.

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The biggest thing that MySpace ever did. Either

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on purpose or not so on purpose. And the thing

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that nobody has tried to bring back since. Being

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able to customize your page. Customizability.

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Either again on purpose or not so on purpose.

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MySpace let you break your own profile on purpose.

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And eventually that became a feature. Now, again,

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was that actually meant to be a feature? Was

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somebody sitting in a boardroom going, hey, you

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know what we should do? We should give millions

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of teenagers access to redesign our front end.

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Probably not. You know what's awesome though?

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MySpace profile pages. had that hole in there.

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The about me box. It didn't just take text. You

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could throw in HTML, CSS, and it would run it.

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Whatever you pasted in there overrode the layout,

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the colors, the styling, not part of it, the

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whole thing, the background, the fonts, the colors,

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where everything set on the page. That was a

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bug. It was just a bug. but a fun bug it's a

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bug that a couple million like -minded teenagers

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all found around the same time and thought it

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was the greatest thing that had ever happened

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if you're running a myspace profile back in 2005

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and people are loving it yeah you're probably

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not fixing that do you remember the first time

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you landed on a page that didn't look like everybody

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else's None of the blue and the white and the

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orange Somebody I knew Back in high school had

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a custom background custom fonts the whole nine

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yards, and I remember sitting there Thinking

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Hold on wait a minute you can do that Nobody

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told me you could do that and when I found out

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man it was over every spare hour I had went into

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that stupid MySpace page. After school, on the

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weekends, sitting at the family computer, in

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the computer room. Remember those? Because I

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mean, there was no MySpace on your phone. That

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wasn't a thing yet. You wanted to work on your

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MySpace profile, you sat there in the chair.

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And there were sites for this. You remember these?

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The layout sites, the code generators, page after

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page of pre -made themes. You'd copy a wall of

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code, paste it into that box, hit save, and pray

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that it looked like that one from the example.

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Sometimes you get something that looked absolutely

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amazing, absolutely gorgeous. Sometimes you get

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white text. on a white background and a sidebar

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that had relocated over to the nether realm.

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Either way, you were learning something, whether

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you meant to or not. That whole broken mess was,

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you know, free coding education running at full

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blast. But it was the, it was, you know, disguised

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as, uh, well, I mean, to a bunch of kids in the

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early 2000s, it was a popularity contest. You'd

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see the page that you liked, you would view the

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source, start pulling chunks out of it, like

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some web design wizard. What's this table do?

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What's this element do? What happens if I change

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this little number? Hang on, why did my entire

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page just turn hot pink? You know, stuff like

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that. Nobody assigned any... You know school

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assignments on this millions of kids did it anyways

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Because they wanted their corner of the internet

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to look cooler than their friends corner over

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there And I was one of them you were too don't

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lie to me that notepad file Was my textbook and

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I wrote it myself with chunks of information

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little snippets that I had found across the internet

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one one stolen little piece at a time Compare

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that to how you would learn to build a page today.

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You pick a template, you drag some blocks around

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inside lines somebody else already drew for you,

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right? And the platform, it actively tries and

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stop you from touching the code underneath. That's

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a no -no. You can't do that even if you wanted

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to, even if you know how to. No view source no

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box to paste into You know that whole Customality

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that on -ramp that whole thing that's gone. We

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get sterile pages now and apps That all look

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identical to one another Think back to August

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of 2003 that's when myspace launches July of

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2005, the big bad news Corp, the big bad boys

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behind Fox announced they're buying MySpace's

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parent company for about $580 million. It was

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a cash deal. By June of 2006, it had passed Yahoo

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and Google to become the most visited website

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in the United States. In 2008, it's pulling in

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around $800 million a year. That's a lot of money.

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A website where teenagers pasted glitter code

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snippets into a text box out trafficked Google

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and Yahoo. And yes, the results were often hideous

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as all hell. I mean, you remember those. You

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had the autoplay music that ambushed you at maximum

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percent volume the second the damn page loaded

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You had the you had the glitter graphics cursors

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with trails on them snow Christmas lights in

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July pages that took 40 damn seconds to load

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because somebody Embedded six damn videos on

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top of each other the visitor hit counters all

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that crap that was in there It was chaos. It

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was absolute chaos, but it was our chaos. It

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was your chaos. Every ugly ass page was ugly

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in its own completely unique way. It was special

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because a specific person made it with some questionable

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set of bad decisions to get there. You could

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land on a stranger's profile and know something

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about them before you read a single word they

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put on that page. I mean, I met my wife on MySpace

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in 2007. No kidding. MySpace had chat rooms.

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That's how we met. That's a whole other episode.

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I'll get to it at some point. Don't worry. But

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try that today. I mean, go ahead. Every profile

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on every platform is the same template with a

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different photo dropped into the same little

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circle. Same font, same layout, same everything

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really. You could swap the names on a thousand

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accounts and I guarantee you nobody would notice

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because nothing's unique anymore. It's sterile.

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It all looks the same. Where did the permission

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go? When did we say no to fun pages? Because

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I don't remember anybody taking a vote on this.

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I didn't get a vote. The ability to make your

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MySpace page yours just quietly Vanished one

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day before we knew it. It was gone platform by

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platform And I couldn't tell you exactly when

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I if I had to Put a time on it. I would say Probably

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somewhere around when I get on Facebook Which

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was probably late 2005 2006 somewhere in there.

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I think maybe And I guess at that time, I think

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we all kind of wanted it. You know, Facebook

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was clean. It was fast. It was polished for,

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I mean, 2005 standards. Everything loaded. I

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definitely didn't miss the damn glitter. I mean,

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at least that's how I felt then. They'll tell

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you too it was about security. And to be fair,

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yes, the... The security problems were real.

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That hole in the about me box was a code injection

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vector. And I mean, people were misusing it.

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I mean, they were absolutely using it in that

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way, but I don't, uh, I don't think that's mostly

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what happened. I think it's, it's much simpler

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than that. A page that, uh, that you spent, you

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know, four hours building as a page. you sort

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of sit with. You linger on it for a little bit.

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You're proud of it, right? And lingering, well,

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that's sort of poison to, you know, the feed

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and the algorithms. A feed, especially today,

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Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, whatever other flavor

00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:59.929
out there, a feed needs you moving. It needs

00:13:59.929 --> 00:14:03.309
you scrolling, swiping past a thousand identical

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stupid little boxes. Customization, it slows

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you down. And slowing down doesn't feed the algorithm.

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And it sure as hell doesn't sell ads. Zuckerberg

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and Musk, they need some more money, right? So,

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I mean, the box where you could... Paste your

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weird little HTML get replaced with a template

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You're allowed to fill it in You are never ever

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allowed to touch it Outside of that Customize

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make it yours. I Don't think I uh, you know stopped

00:14:47.919 --> 00:14:50.639
customizing because I grew out of it they the

00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:53.639
option just kind of slowly got taken away and

00:14:53.639 --> 00:14:57.250
then somebody told me The sterile version was

00:14:57.250 --> 00:15:03.230
the one that I wanted all along. Also, let's

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be upfront about this. MySpace didn't die a martyr

00:15:06.830 --> 00:15:09.309
here either. All right, let's be honest about

00:15:09.309 --> 00:15:12.690
that. News Corp, you know, the big bad boys behind

00:15:12.690 --> 00:15:16.710
Fox News Channel, bought it at an absolute top

00:15:16.710 --> 00:15:20.269
premium billing and ran it straight into the

00:15:20.269 --> 00:15:26.889
dirt. Sold it. in June of 2011 for about $35

00:15:26.889 --> 00:15:32.070
million, mostly in stock, to an ad network. You

00:15:32.070 --> 00:15:36.429
know who was one of the, uh, the, uh, the guys

00:15:36.429 --> 00:15:40.750
who bought it? Justin Timberlake. Yeah, the guy

00:15:40.750 --> 00:15:43.629
that was bringing sexy back. He took a piece

00:15:43.629 --> 00:15:48.049
of it. Murdoch, you know, the guy behind News

00:15:48.049 --> 00:15:50.929
Corp and Fox, later called the whole thing a

00:15:50.929 --> 00:15:56.950
huge mistake. Yeah, I bet. 580 million to 35

00:15:56.950 --> 00:16:03.049
million in only six years. That's not losing

00:16:03.049 --> 00:16:05.769
to a better idea. That's buying the coolest thing

00:16:05.769 --> 00:16:08.309
on the internet and carefully managing the cool

00:16:08.309 --> 00:16:14.649
right on out of it. That era was the most fun

00:16:14.649 --> 00:16:19.899
I think the internet had ever been. You know,

00:16:19.899 --> 00:16:22.379
maybe outside of GeoCities and AngelFire and

00:16:22.379 --> 00:16:26.820
those kind of pages. Definitely not the smoothest.

00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:30.419
It was really rough around the edges. It also

00:16:30.419 --> 00:16:33.940
wasn't the safest. You know, and definitely not

00:16:33.940 --> 00:16:38.620
the best looking. The most fun though. You could

00:16:38.620 --> 00:16:45.139
really demonstrate your personality. That's what

00:16:45.139 --> 00:16:49.399
I miss about it. Because back then, The deal

00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:53.340
was simple. Here's a box. Here's some code. Go

00:16:53.340 --> 00:16:59.480
make something awesome. And we said, at that

00:16:59.480 --> 00:17:04.440
time in the 2000s, we said yes so hard that we

00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:06.700
accidentally taught ourselves web design without

00:17:06.700 --> 00:17:11.700
ever meaning to. So did a couple million other

00:17:11.700 --> 00:17:15.200
people sitting in their own chairs in that computer

00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:20.170
room back in 2005 at their at the the family

00:17:20.170 --> 00:17:24.490
computer. Somewhere out there on a dead hard

00:17:24.490 --> 00:17:28.009
drive, there's a notepad file full of hex codes

00:17:28.009 --> 00:17:31.490
with my name on it. I'm sure that file is gone.

00:17:31.589 --> 00:17:34.109
I don't think I've got that drive anymore, but

00:17:34.109 --> 00:17:37.990
what it taught me never left. I'm still out there

00:17:37.990 --> 00:17:42.430
creating, still out there making websites. And

00:17:42.430 --> 00:17:45.650
I think we need to get back to that that part

00:17:45.650 --> 00:17:50.039
of the Internet where we can Customize and show

00:17:50.039 --> 00:17:53.480
our own personalities again, so we're not Trying

00:17:53.480 --> 00:17:56.640
to be like everybody else out there. We need

00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:02.660
to be unique individuals again That's the show

00:18:02.660 --> 00:18:07.440
for now if you want to keep up with it subscribe

00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:12.500
wherever you're listening You can find everything

00:18:12.500 --> 00:18:16.480
else at Tyler Woodward me And if you want to

00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:18.819
buy me a cup of coffee, you can also do that

00:18:18.819 --> 00:18:22.500
at Tyler Woodward .me. If you're on Apple, support

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goodness. It at least helps cover the podcast

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hosting fees. That's all I got for you this week.

00:18:36.500 --> 00:18:38.559
I'll check back in with you guys next Tuesday.