SXSW Part 1, Facebook Messenger Day, and Sonos Playbase

As you may have heard, The Vergecast is live this week at South by Southwest! We have one episode down and another one to go on Tuesday. On this special episode, Nilay and Dieter welcome Lauren Goode and Casey Newton on to talk the news outside of SXSW; in the tech world. And the show wouldn’t be complete without the weekly gadget segment, so Paul — relaxing at home in New York — sent the gang a letter to keep the tradition alive. You can listen here, or watch the video on The Verge Facebook page. 03:55 - Google and Levi’s connected smart jacket will come out this fall and costs around $350 06:59 - Uptime is a goofy video sharing app from Google’s Area 120 startup incubator 09:13 - Facebook Messenger Day 19:52 - The Sonos Playbase is a $700 speaker that sits under your TV 26:19 - FCC’s walk back of ISP privacy rules 36:27 - Anchor is like Snapchat stories for audio, and it’s delightful 38:56 - Paul’s weekly segment “Friendship is like a Keurig” 41:39 - Latest Samsung Galaxy S8 leak gives us a close look at button changes 45:20 - LG G6 and the mobile/desktop dream 53:49 - Twitch replaced its homepage with a Twitter clone for gamers Tune in Tuesday at 1:30 ET/12:30 CT/10:30 PT for another live episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of theverge.com, a multi-channel media experience about technology.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  And we're live.

• 0:11Nilay Patel?

  We're live. We're here at South by Southwest. We're live. Make noise.

• 0:18Nilay Patel?

  Google's AI is really good at providing that artificial crowd noise for us now. It's amazing. But we're at South by Southwest. We're doing two shows live here, one today, one a couple of days from now. I'm Neil Patel, the editor of The Verge. I'm joined as always by Dieter Bohn. Hey, Dieter. Hello. How's it going? On this episode, Lauren Good is here.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. It's all right. That worked.

• 0:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:38Nilay Patel?

  Technology expert Lauren Good will now operate a microphone. And Casey Newton's here.

• 0:41Speaker 03

  Hi, everybody. You look great this morning.

• 0:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we're just gonna get right into some news. There's a lot going on, but kind of not at South by. So I want to start with Casey and Lauren, because you guys are roaming reporters, you're doing the stuff. Casey, what are you seeing here?

• 0:55Speaker 03

  So I think the show has gotten off to a little bit of a slow start, at least for the first couple of days. I think that might turn around today. Joe Biden is speaking. That's the hottest ticket at South by.

• 1:06Nilay Patel?

  It really says a lot. Well, former Vice President Joe Biden.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  James Comey was supposed to be here, but he backed out.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  He did. He heard about some of the questions I was prepared to ask him. And he said, no, thank you. So yeah, so we haven't seen a whole lot. There's not a social app breaking out that I can tell. But if any of the audience, if you're using a hot new app, you should let me know.

• 1:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Or if you've created a new app, just email Casey. It's Casey at the Verge.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, Neil at theverge.com.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Casey's actually been really, really active on the new Facebook Messenger Day Story Snapchat clone thing. So you can find him there at South by Southwest if you're looking for it.

• 1:46Nilay Patel?

  Lauren, what are your adventures? What have you been up to?

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Well, let's see. My South by Southwest started with an interview at the Delta Terminal at LAX, as they often do.

• 1:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  And that was really fun. I was supposed to interview some actors that are here, and they kind of backed out. Because, you know, actors. But I did a bit of interviewing some really interesting technologists. You can find that video on our social pages. Last night, I went to a comedy show. And this morning, more importantly, I saw Dean Bakke, the executive editor of the New York Times.

• 2:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Interviewed by his own media reporter.

• 2:16Nilay Patel?

  So hard hitting.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was a lot of like, "Well, you're my boss. Let me just ask you this." Which is exactly what this is gonna be like, guys.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  If I got interviewed that hard-

• 2:25Nilay Patel?

  Lauren, what have you done today?

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Well, I've been filing like a mad person. I am not hungover.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  If Lauren interviewed you, you'd be wrecked.

• 2:32Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't, I think the listeners all know that I'm mostly a figurehead. I think it's very obvious that I don't do a lot here.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  But to Casey's point, I think today is gonna be a lot more interesting. And it did kick off with this discussion about the New York Times' coverage of Trump. And in fact, the name of the panel was, I think, "Covering POTUS: The Failing New York Times," or something like that. And so they just got right into it. And what it's like being the New York Times covering Trump right now. What it's like to sort of wake up and have the president tweeting about the organization. How the New York Times plans to cover its tweets and has been covering tweets. So it was a pretty interesting conversation, I'd say.

• 3:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it just feels like a very quiet year so far.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:13Nilay Patel?

  But, I don't know, brands are here. They'll activate.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  That's the thing, is that you have to wait for the activations to start. It's inactive by definition until then.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Well, there's a Star Wars activation that's like, "Escape the room but not escape the room." You'd like, walk around, solve puzzles.

• 3:28Nilay Patel?

  I've never escaped a room. Should I escape a room?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  You should escape a room.

• 3:31Speaker 03

  Where are the exits to this building right away?

• 3:35Speaker 01

  There's a hololens over there, this robot arm over here?

• 3:37Nilay Patel?

  The robot arm over there that drew a Verge logo. If you're in your car, just imagine a robot arm drawing a Verge logo. It really speaks for itself.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  That's just witchcraft, is what that is.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  I think it's actually filing a story right now, which only goes to show that our jobs are being replaced as we speak.

• 3:52Nilay Patel?

  That's good. It's actually a much better story than anything I've written recently. But we should get into some other news. There's actually a lot of Google stuff. Google and Levi's are here.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:01Nilay Patel?

  Classic stuff by Team Up.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Like peanut butter and jelly.

• 4:05Nilay Patel?

  They love each other. But like, a year ago, they announced a smart jacket. Those are some words I said. I'm gonna buy the hell out of this jacket.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Jakard. Jakard. Jakard. Turn off the music.

• 4:15Nilay Patel?

  Because you tap it.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Okay, so if you don't know, it's a Levi's computer jacket. And it has fibers woven into the left sleeve? Left sleeve, and they-

• 4:25Nilay Patel?

  It's a little touchpad, basically.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're touch sensitive, so you can swipe and tap and draw circles. I don't know. And it controls your phone. And it has a little like, Bluetooth cuff link that actually does the work. And then you take that thing off and you can wash it, because they're just like, washable fibers. The weird thing about this is, I saw the tech- Like a year and a half ago?

• 4:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  It just keeps on taking forever to get released.

• 4:48Nilay Patel?

  So it's supposed to come out in spring.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:50Nilay Patel?

  It's supposed to come out now.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Which is the perfect time to buy a fall jacket.

• 4:52Nilay Patel?

  So we all got invited to a Google party last night that got rained out because it's raining in Texas. And then the big sort of announcement was, it's delayed until fall.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 4:59Nilay Patel?

  So really thematically appropriate for their party. It kind of got washed out.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  At least it's happening, I guess.

• 5:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Also, just the fact that the rain ruined a party about a jacket is like kind of amazing.

• 5:12Nilay Patel?

  Uh, it's three, $350, which is a lot, basically.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, what's a good jean jacket cost that doesn't have touch sensitive fabric woven into it?

• 5:21Speaker 03

  You're still not telling these people.

• 5:22Nilay Patel?

  You're really setting up the...

• 5:25Speaker 03

  So our reporter Nick went to go see this jacket yesterday and he came back and I asked him what it did and he, he basically said everything Dieter said and I was like, okay, well like, what does it do? And he's like, well, if you just sort of like mash your paw on the sleeve, you can pause the current track.

• 5:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  And then if you mash it again, it'll restart. $350, enjoy it.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  I mean, how about that voice technology that also does stuff like that now?

• 5:49Nilay Patel?

  Wait, wait, wait, I'm super buying this jacket.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Are you really? I would buy it.

• 5:52Nilay Patel?

  What would you rather do as you walk around? Would you rather scream at your headphones to like stop the music? Or would you rather like gently like?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  No, that's true.

• 6:01Nilay Patel?

  Do some cool stuff.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  I would like it more if there were different, like I'm looking at Dieter's jacket right now, thinking where should the technology be? And like, why can't it be in different places?

• 6:08Nilay Patel?

  I look at Dieter's jacket every day and think, where should the technology be? It's just a constant refrain in my life.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  If I could, if I could go to a store and there's two jackets and one costs 50 bucks more and it has Project Jharg built into it?

• 6:20Nilay Patel?

  Jharg.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  I'd pay the 50 bucks.

• 6:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think that's the move.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  But it has to be a good jacket that I already want. I'm not going to go buy a...

• 6:26Nilay Patel?

  It also has to be for sale, which is a problem that Google seems to be having with all of their products.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  You got a Pixel though, your Pixel finally arrived seven months later.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 6:34Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I'm really into it.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Your photos look lovely.

• 6:36Nilay Patel?

  I had a terrible crisis of confidence because I got it the day before I came here. And I was like, am I going to turn off iMessage and switch Sims the day before I leave for five days?

• 6:48Speaker 02

  The struggle is real.

• 6:49Nilay Patel?

  And I was like, no, I'm not. Like, no, I'm not going to just be like, I will get no text messages for five days. So I have two phones today. That's good, but I keep wanting to use the Pixel.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  So Google actually did a thing today, they might have the app of South by Southwest.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  What, oh, tell us about this.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  It's called UpTime.

• 7:06Nilay Patel?

  You've described it to me twice and I still don't really understand it.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  It's made by this, this thing called Area 120, which is like Google's, I don't know, incubator division where if you want to quit and go make an iPhone app, like, what if you didn't quit and you just made an iPhone app here? And so, they just, they made an iPhone app that is designed to, you find a friend and then you watch a YouTube video together and then you put smiley faces on the YouTube video. It's basically Facebook Live but for watching YouTube.

• 7:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but your-

• 7:32Speaker 01

  And it's messaging.

• 7:33Nilay Patel?

  Your little icons go around.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, they float around.

• 7:35Nilay Patel?

  They travel around, they're like racing around the circle.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  As you're watching.

• 7:38Nilay Patel?

  As you're watching.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  So it's basically a kind of progress-

• 7:40Nilay Patel?

  It's nonsense.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  It's fun.

• 7:42Nilay Patel?

  It's fun.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  I mean, it sounds like the kind of thing that's just eventually just going to be built in, if it works, will just be built into the YouTube app.

• 7:48Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. I don't know how Google wants me to communicate with anyone.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Neither does Google.

• 7:52Nilay Patel?

  It's deeply unclear what Google's like core conviction is. And now their idea is, what if you watch videos together while your icons race around a circle, like throwing hard eyes at each other? Which I guess, now that I say it out loud, is actually really nice.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Sounds pretty.

• 8:07Nilay Patel?

  Sounds really pleasant, actually. I don't know. I want to talk more about Google stuff. There's all this other stuff happening. They can recognize objects in videos.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they had this conference, Google Cloud Next, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and I went and I regret every minute of it. It was the most boring thing I've ever gone to in my life. But they know so much stuff, so like, they can recognize stuff in video, which is just crazy.

• 8:31Nilay Patel?

  So the leap I want to take from there is, that's great, but what they can actually do is then create videos. So they can watch videos and then they can generate new videos based on what they noticed about you watching other videos.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  So they're, they're automatically editing stuff together based on things you've stitched together?

• 8:48Nilay Patel?

  They could. You've watched a bunch of kitty videos. We've made a video that's all of the best parts of the other kitty videos.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Huh. How do you know I watch cat videos?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Because they, they know you watch cat videos. They know when you, they know when you stop watching them, but they can identify-

• 9:00Nilay Patel?

  I've seen your Instagram, Lauren. I know that you make a lot of cat videos.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  How's, how's your cat doing?

• 9:04Speaker 02

  He's fine. I miss him. He's great, though. By the way, my cat-

• 9:08Nilay Patel?

  Hard left turn for the Verge cats.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Android was named after my cat, in case you didn't know.

• 9:11Nilay Patel?

  We're going to, we're going to talk about Lauren's cat. Okay, so Casey, I'm just going to let you pop off about Facebook Messenger. I'm ready to go. So messaging, I think we all know, is disaster for every company that isn't, doesn't lock you in with their iPhone. Right. Right? So it's like, hyper competitive right now. Snap just IPO'd. It seems like Mark Zuckerberg has a hard directive to every one of his lieutenants. Just copy Snapchat as much as you can.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:36Nilay Patel?

  So Instagram, I think, we were talking about this last night. Instagram has done, I think, the best job of just like boxing in Snapchat.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 9:42Nilay Patel?

  WhatsApp put out a stories clone and then Messenger did something and you, I believe, hate it.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  I don't think it's going well. Do you guys have this new update Messenger Day? Does this make any sense to you? Okay, do you use Facebook Messenger or is that not hot?

• 9:55Nilay Patel?

  These people respect their privacy.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Okay. Ask me if they use Hangouts.

• 10:01Nilay Patel?

  What do you use?

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, what?

• 10:02Nilay Patel?

  What do you use?

• 10:02Speaker 03

  What do you guys use?

• 10:03Nilay Patel?

  Huh?

• 10:04Speaker 03

  iMessage.

• 10:05Nilay Patel?

  iMessage.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  iMessage.

• 10:06Nilay Patel?

  Use Telegram.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  iMessage.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Telegram?

• 10:08Nilay Patel?

  Some Signal users out here. The government's watching you.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  ALO? We found ALO.

• 10:13Nilay Patel?

  Who is ALO? Liar.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  The guy in the front row with the checkered shirt.

• 10:17Nilay Patel?

  Don't come to my show and lie on my face.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  We're gonna tag you and release you back into the wild so you can be studied. Here's the thing about Facebook Messenger is that it used to just be a list of messages and then you would type on your keyboard and people would receive them and that you, really, they had a nice thing going. Now, you open it and the first third of the screen is just your friends' faces just being like, "Hey, I'm in Austin, I'm eating a taco." And you're supposed to respond to these and it literally is just Snapchat inside of what was previously a text-based texting app. And people are revolting.

• 10:53Nilay Patel?

  When I look at it, because it's revolting.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  Because it's revolting.

• 10:57Nilay Patel?

  When I look at the whole screen for Messenger, there's like a bunch of faces. I see three chats and then a bunch of faces, some more faces, birthdays. It's been Amortor's birthday for like three years now. Every day, it's always his birthday.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  It's like...

• 11:12Nilay Patel?

  And then the rest of my messages are actually like, it's impossible to just type at somebody.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  It's gotten very bloated and I think that's what happens when you are driven by data and not a more intuitive sense of how human beings actually want to communicate, right? This is Snapchat's strength, is that Evan Spiegel and his product people have a very good sense for the way that people really want to interact and Facebook doesn't. Facebook just wants to look at spreadsheets and decide how they can, you know, optimize engagement by 3% more and the result is a messaging app that looks like Microsoft Office. So, you know, we'll see what the effect is.

• 11:42Nilay Patel?

  Which is my dream.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Which is yours. So we'll see what the effect is, but the early reviews have been pretty bad. And I'm not a heavy WhatsApp user, but my WhatsApp status, which is essentially the same thing that Messenger Day is, is completely empty. Like, nobody's using it.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  It's crazy to me that when Snapchat first started, people complained about the interface so much. And they were like, "Oh, God, it's terrible. It's confusing. There are so many swipes and taps. I don't know what to do." And now everyone's like, "Snapchat, messaging, brilliant." And Facebook Messenger was essentially this utility, and now it's become this ridiculously bloated thing.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. It makes me pine for the interface of Snapchat, which is a thing I never thought I would say.

• 12:21Nilay Patel?

  I just want G-Chat to come back.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Not.

• 12:25Nilay Patel?

  Everybody loved it. Who didn't love it?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Not coming back. Never.

• 12:28Nilay Patel?

  Somewhere. Here's the bigger question. It's on a whiteboard in Sundar's office somewhere. It's on a Jamboard.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  That's what they're called.

• 12:36Nilay Patel?

  Stop saying Jamboard. That's why no one will take the idea seriously. Sundar's like, "I'm not doing any of these fucking Jamboard ideas. Stop rolling that in here."

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Here's my question for the panel, okay? There's this idea out there that is driving all of this, which is that the keyboard is the interface of the past and the camera is the interface of the future. And that we're moving away from a world where we're going to use text to communicate, and it's all just going to be us trading images back and forth. Do you accept that to be true? And are we too old to understand how that's going to work?

• 13:07Nilay Patel?

  Yes, the children of the future will be dumber than ever. No, I completely disagree with that. I think if anything, what we've learned is that these products are segmenting super hard. And the tablet zone is confusing. It's like, it's become this consumption device. And most people want a laptop and a phone. And fine, they're going to communicate with a phone. And it's very quick to communicate visually with a phone. But that just means your written communication is going to get richer in some way. And no one solved that problem.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, here's what I'll say. I don't love typing on a keyboard, and taking a picture is way easier. But it turns out that language is a pretty good means for communicating information abstracted from what you're seeing. It's a pretty good invention. And there should be a way to continue to use it on a phone. And like, a picture just isn't language. It's a language, but like, I need to tell you I'm going to be late. I'm not going to send you a picture.

• 13:56Nilay Patel?

  Wait, wait.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  What?

• 13:57Nilay Patel?

  I'm going to definitely start doing that to you, because I'm always late. And I'm just going to start sending you cryptic photos.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  What if you just send me a picture when you're not going to be late? And then I'll never hear from you again.

• 14:06Nilay Patel?

  I'll never send you any photos.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  I think we have a writer's bias. I think we are writers and I think for as long as I live, I will have a writer's bias where I, for me, sitting down and typing something and being like, meanwhile, at the Driscoll, Neil, I was having important meetings, like,

• 14:22Nilay Patel?

  what am I doing?

• 14:23Speaker 02

  I was just thinking about like, writing something about Southside.

• 14:25Nilay Patel?

  I was gonna drink Bud Light all day, but do I have to?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I just think that's always gonna be something that I turn to. Yesterday's podcast, the Too Embarrassed podcast with Mary Lou Jepson, we talked a little bit about how she, her newest startup, they're looking at neural activity and how you'd basically wear this ski cap that would monitor your neural activity and then put images out there in the world based on what you're thinking, which is this crazy, awesome, futuristic idea. But there's a certain, there are all these ethical and interesting complications that come up when you're talking about just using voice control, pressing buttons and not really thinking about, I think there's a little bit of a, perhaps a thoughtlessness that can happen with communication when you're not actually taking the time to sit and write.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Also, the moment at which my thoughts become visible is the moment I'm just sent to jail and never seen again. This, this technology, how can we go back in time and prevent this from being invented?

• 15:22Nilay Patel?

  There are so many things a photo can't do. Like, what are the most viral photos? They're like memes. They have text on them.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:30Nilay Patel?

  Because you need to enhance that photo in some way. Like, you can't deliver an insult to someone. I'm thinking of you personally. Things that you would wanna do and communicate. Like, you can't do that just by taking like a photo of your own face. You have tried many times to deliver a cutting insult just by showing what your face looks like. There's things people wanna do. You can't really tell a joke with just a photo.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree. And so it sounds like we're on the same page that there's value in human language. So there's our hot take from the Verge. But, so the question is like-

• 15:58Nilay Patel?

  It's the Vergecast, everybody.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, and good night. But the question is, like, is there still going to be a text-centric messenger in the future or is every single one going to morph into this, you know, say it with your face type of thing? I think that's the open question.

• 16:11Nilay Patel?

  So, I think there's actually a really cynical reason behind that push, which is, I don't think anyone would accept- Advertising in their text chats. So like as I'm talking-

• 16:22Speaker 01

  He's about to steal my idea.

• 16:23Nilay Patel?

  Well-

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Comes from me, by the way.

• 16:24Nilay Patel?

  I'll just, I'm just gonna-

• 16:25Speaker 01

  No, no, you go.

• 16:26Nilay Patel?

  If you're in your car, what I'm doing is I'm awkwardly passing an invisible ball to Dieter. But, uh, you know, like this. That's what you do.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Ah, I can't catch it.

• 16:33Nilay Patel?

  I'm a professional mime. It didn't go well.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  Mime is always so great on a podcast.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:37Nilay Patel?

  No, like, you would never accept if I was texting with you, just Google being like- And they're trying with ALO in some way to be like, "Hey, we're reading what you're writing."

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Why don't you go to this coffee shop to meet your friends?

• 16:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, exactly. But with Snapchat-

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Sponsored coffee shop.

• 16:50Nilay Patel?

  What they've done with Stories particularly well-

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:53Nilay Patel?

  Is you're clicking along and then all of a sudden it's like an ad. And that is very valuable. That means they can monetize this interface directly, which is your whole thing.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, the core innovation in Stories is, it sounds dumb, but instead of scrolling by moving your thumb up, you're swiping by moving your thumb to the left? And it becomes a pane interface instead of a single sheet that moves. On a single sheet that moves or in text, if that gets interrupted by an ad, you're like, "What the shit? This is no, uncool." Uh, but when you're swiping between things that change, bop, bop, bop, if one of those bops is an ad, you're like, "Oh yeah, that's the way the world works."

• 17:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  It's just like it's a magazine reinvented.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so when everybody is copying Snapchat, it's not that they're so deeply in love with the magic of Stories and telling your day and, you know, "Look at this interface." It's that, "Oh shit, they figured out a way that people will accept ads that they didn't accept before. We need to get in on that."

• 17:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and that's what you want everywhere is nonstop intrusive advertising in all of your communications.

• 17:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, we say as we sit inside a giant advertisement. Made out of National Geographic.

• 17:57Nilay Patel?

  No, but National Geographic is great and I really appreciate all the work they do.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  Please subscribe.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  They gave me this beer.

• 18:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I got a beer, we're sitting here.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 18:05Nilay Patel?

  It's good, open bar.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:06Nilay Patel?

  All the brands at the bar are great, too. My favorite booze is from all around the world.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Next Vergecast is going to be from Antarctica, so be sure to stay tuned.

• 18:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna tell us we're going to Antarctica. And we're just never coming back. That's how National Geographic puts the kibosh on you. We've got a great idea for a mini-series.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  They're like, "We really hope that smartwatch works for you out there in the wild."

• 18:27Nilay Patel?

  We're seriously, we're definitely scheduled to do two episodes of this. We're now definitely just doing this.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Is Messenger like existentially in trouble? Do they need to dial this back? Or is it just, this is the way that things look now?

• 18:38Speaker 03

  It's actually sort of an interesting question. I don't think it's existentially in trouble in the sense that they're just gonna like have to get rid of it or something. It has hundreds of millions of users, but most people assume that their engagement is pretty low, so the amount of messages that people are sending per day on Messenger is much less than what you would find on something like Snapchat. And the other big thing to think about with Messenger is, they made this big push into bots last year, right? Which was going to be the other way that they monetized, was by helping you interact with businesses and taking a cut off of sales. And that just totally flopped. So, that flopped, so if this advertising-based push into stories flops as well, then...

• 19:11Nilay Patel?

  I have a question. Outside of like the Echo, or Google Home, or Siri, does anybody interact with a bot at all?

• 19:18Speaker 02

  We've got a hand raised over there.

• 19:19Nilay Patel?

  Well, there's the one ALO user's like, he's like, "Yeah." All the fucking time, because that's the only thing to do in ALO. Just me and the robot. Anybody else? Any other humans? We got one.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  We've got a couple over here.

• 19:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah? Did you write the bot yourself? Slackbot. Slackbot, okay. Oh, and Southbybot. Oh, okay. So a couple nerd-specific bots are invading the world. I just think, it hasn't happened. Yeah. But I think the voice stuff will kind of make it happen. Which is an excellent way for me to segue into a lengthy rant about Sonos. I'm really mad about the Sonos playbase. Yeah. I understand that it is a low-interest product for everyone but me. Although Casey's very angry about it, too. I yelled about it a lot. You just love failure.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  We should describe what the playbase is. Take the playbar from three years ago, the soundbar, and then make it...

• 20:06Speaker 02

  It was $700, right?

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Really big and flat, and do nothing else to it.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  But reduce the price.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  And then put a TV on top of it.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  And lower the price to 400.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, whatever.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Well, just to, you know, for those out there that are wondering about the price.

• 20:19Nilay Patel?

  No, the playbase is $700.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  Oh, it is?

• 20:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought I was lower price for some reason.

• 20:23Nilay Patel?

  No, no, no.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  I did not listen to what I just said.

• 20:26Nilay Patel?

  So, Sonos has a new CEO. You interviewed Patrick Spence.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Patrick Spence.

• 20:29Nilay Patel?

  You interviewed him.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  He says all the right things, uh, but hasn't done them yet.

• 20:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Is what I will say.

• 20:35Nilay Patel?

  And their big dream is that they're gonna sell you a distributed speaker system in your house where you can talk to every voice assistant.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:43Nilay Patel?

  And issue commands to all of them.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:45Nilay Patel?

  So like, you can say Alexa, or hey Siri, or whatever, and it will like, do the backend and go talk to the right assistant.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Sonos' core claim is, because they're, they are in Santa Barbara, not Silicon Valley, they're the Switzerland of smart assistants, and everybody-

• 21:00Nilay Patel?

  I often think of Santa Barbara as being Switzerland. It's great. Fine chocolates, Europeans.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go.

• 21:05Nilay Patel?

  Aquiline features, I don't know.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  They think that Amazon, and Google, and Apple, and, I don't know, whoever else makes it, Microsoft, are all gonna be totally fine to all have all their assistants listening at the same time on Sonos' speaker system, because Sonos is the Switzerland of speakers.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  Right. And that they're going to link fairly to all of the services that you could possibly listen to.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  In order to achieve that future, they have to, A, make sure that those companies let them do it, and B, here's an important thing, they need to put microphones in their shit.

• 21:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Which they didn't do with their brand new $700 speaker.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:40Nilay Patel?

  Which makes no sense.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:42Nilay Patel?

  Also, the speaker doesn't have HDMI inputs. Like, if you're making a home theater thing, and people, there's a lot of arguments about this, but I just don't think you should make a $700 home theater speaker that doesn't accept HDMI in.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  How does it actually sound compared to the initial $700?

• 21:58Nilay Patel?

  Uh, so Chris Welch went and listened to it, he says it sounds great.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:01Nilay Patel?

  Um, I'm su- I have a bunch of Sonos speakers, they all sound great. Like, they're fine speakers. I think their problem is, they're just so high on their own supply, that like, we're the simplest way to listen to music, we have the simplest way to distribute music, they've forgotten that there are many, many other ways to do that now, so it's like, a lot cheaper to buy a bunch of Google Cast devices and stream music all over your house.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:24Nilay Patel?

  If you have services that are compatible with Google Cast.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  It seems like they're really, Sonos is just- Totally double down on this idea that they're selling to audiophiles, or selling to people who really want hi-fi, you know, super great sounding stuff, while maybe missing the fact that even if someone buys a crappy speaker, like an Echo Dot, which is a totally crappy speaker, and to some extent the Echo, that's still money, and hundreds of dollars, that someone is going to spend on something else, and possibly not spend on a Sonos, even though they offer two completely different value propositions.

• 22:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I think that if you offered somebody a Sonos Play One, which sounds great...

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, and they're only $199 bucks.

• 23:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and they sound...

• 23:02Speaker 03

  Really?

• 23:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're not super expensive. And then you offered them an Echo, which sounds awful, but is clearly easier to use, because you can just talk to it. I think a great number of people would just pick the Echo.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:14Nilay Patel?

  I don't know anybody who's dying to put a huge piece of plastic under their TV. Also, Bose makes that product, and if you're just gonna buy a huge speaker to put under a TV, you can get it for 300 bucks. So the only people who care about this product are people who already have a Sonos system, and they want another speaker for their bet. It's just very confusing.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, also, people are gonna pick one voice assistant for their house. I honestly believe that. Like, it's hard enough to learn the interface for one, the idea that you're gonna pick a speaker because you can speak to five at the same time is insane.

• 23:47Nilay Patel?

  No, but I think that's how you address the market. And also, I think a lot of people have Siri and Alexa in their lives already.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Sure, but not... I don't think they're super happy about it. Or I think they, like, try to choose to use one a lot more than they use the other. Or they use them essentially interchangeably, because the set of commands is basically the same.

• 24:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. No, I disagree again.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  All right.

• 24:06Nilay Patel?

  I think the reason that you have Alexa in your life is because you want it to do house stuff.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:11Nilay Patel?

  It's like ambiently around you.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:13Nilay Patel?

  And the Siri home kit stuff is, in some cases, better, in some cases, worse. But Alexa just owns that space. And then when you leave the house, you have your phone with you, and you might talk to Siri. But Siri's, to me at least, it's about, like, what's happening on your phone. When you're out and about, where Alexa's like, "What's happening in your house?" Right?

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Sure. It was like, neither of those things are really gonna differentiate a Sonos speaker, right? Like, you're not gonna be more excited by Sonos because it has Siri in it.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Right, as long as these, everything is still kind of a walled garden, even if you have five assistants in the same speaker, you're still ultimately going to default to the voice assistant that's gonna bring you to the service you want. I can't imagine even thinking to say, "Alexa, open my iTunes," or play iTunes. It's just not gonna happen that way. I guess to your point, I think to your point, you can have five assistants in the same speaker, and ultimately, you're just gonna use one or two.

• 24:59Nilay Patel?

  Right. But if you wanna sell speakers to everybody, which Sonos has to do, I don't think they can just sign the deal with Amazon, be like, "It's Alexa now," right? They have signed a deal with Amazon, but that's, so you can buy an Echo Dot and light up your Sonos. Which I'm very excited about doing.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  That's the other thing, is they haven't shipped like, a full Alexa skill yet, because they're trying to have a deeper integration. So like, their claim is, when they finally, like, you can buy a Dot and stick it on top of your Sonos, right? So buy the Play One, put the Dot on top of it.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Can you actually? Oh, you can't put a line in. I didn't think you could do Sonos.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it doesn't, like, fully integrate yet, because they wanna have, they wanna live in a world where you ask Alexa to play Apple Music on your Sonos. And there's like, three partnerships that have to happen there, and like, three translation layers. Alexa needs to know that you like Apple Music, but Alexa doesn't talk to Apple Music, but Sonos talks to Apple Music, so they gotta like, do this whole like, jigsaw puzzle of crap. And they, that's like, they're waiting, the story of Sonos is like, "We know what the perfect solution is, and we're gonna have it for you in three years."

• 26:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  And that's always been their story.

• 26:03Nilay Patel?

  And people wonder why vinyl is resurging. Doesn't that just seem easier? Like, I'm just gonna walk over there and play some music, and then I just like, turn up the volume, and it'll be fine. It just seems very complicated to me.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, this company sucks. What else we got?

• 26:17Nilay Patel?

  I just wanted to rant and rave about this. So, I don't know if you guys have been following this. I am personally tracking the day-to-day movements of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Does he share his location with you? I'm fine with my friends.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Has he agreed to him on the Vergecast yet?

• 26:34Nilay Patel?

  Well, you know, he's relaxing those privacy rules, so I just know where he is. So Jake, this week, wrote a big thing. There's a move afoot. So, when the FCC reclassified the internet on a Title II, they're granted a new power to regulate the internet. One of the things that the FCC did with that power was affirmatively tell internet service providers, "You can't share data. You can't share browsing data. You can't share information about what websites people visit." All this stuff with other parties without getting consent. In fact, you shouldn't do it, just don't do it. This FCC is rolling that back. They've halted the implementation of that, and Congress is gonna pass a law just wiping it off the books entirely. So I have a conspiracy theory.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Which is?

• 27:15Nilay Patel?

  I'm just gonna do it.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  No, I don't think it's a conspiracy. I think it's fact. I know what his theory is, but like, the thing that, before you get into your thing, the thing that boggles me is, the FCC is basically saying, with a little bit of like hand-waving and talking about the FTC, Verizon and AT&T and Comcast can look at the websites you visit and then sell them to advertisers.

• 27:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Or to whomever they want, and they don't need to even tell you they're doing it. I don't understand why the entire internet isn't on fire with anger about it.

• 27:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  It's like, nobody's, nobody can notice because they're too busy seeing all the other crap that's happening.

• 27:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  That your browsing habits, you, like, you, sorry, you go to a porn site at Incognito, Comcast still knows that, yo. They can see it.

• 28:01Nilay Patel?

  Someone at Comcast is like, "Ah, another hot night." It's getting wild.

• 28:07Nilay Patel?

  No, this is the thing. We used to, we did a story, I can't remember if it was AT&T or Verizon's data center, where we went to their data center, and they have to make their jobs seem interesting, so they all build these like war game-style rooms, where they're like, "This is the internet." And it's like, "Who looks at this?" They're like, "You! Just come back whenever you want, we're so bored."

• 28:25Nilay Patel?

  But they build these huge walls, like data walls, and they're like, "That's all the porn, and that one's all Netflix." And it's like, "Here's the internet." And it's like, "One-third Netflix, and like, two-thirds porn."

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Porn industry leading the way once again.

• 28:38Nilay Patel?

  So, I mean, they know. They're very, they're hyper aware of this stuff.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:42Nilay Patel?

  So what's happening is, I think, if you just add up all the, this is truly a conspiracy theory.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:47Nilay Patel?

  This is some Alex Jones shit I'm about to do, but it's like a live audience. I'm gonna start screaming "Turn red" and take off my shirt in a second. It's gonna be great. But all the pieces line up. So Verizon in particular has gotten in trouble several times for injecting a super cookie into every network packet. So if you have a Verizon phone, they're literally tracking on a packet level what you do with that phone. Uh, they've been told to stop, they changed it so you could opt out, but they still, it's still there. Which is, it's like a dance around the rules. They're like, we're just not...

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Do you need to explain what a super cookie is?

• 29:18Nilay Patel?

  It's a cookie that's super.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:19Nilay Patel?

  You guys all know what a website cookie is, right? I think Vergecast listeners know.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:23Nilay Patel?

  So a super cookie, you can clear your cookies on the browser level. You can clear that data on sort of a mobile phone. You can like push the button on the iPhone, get rid of all that tracking data.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:34Nilay Patel?

  You can do it on Android phone. Verizon just does it at the network interface level.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:39Nilay Patel?

  So you can't just like clear it. And even if you could, it would be a Verizon user interface. So it would be like punishing and hard to use and probably not work. And then charge you $39. So they're already tracking this data on a super granular network level.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:53Nilay Patel?

  Their old lawyer, Ajit Pai, who's now the chairman of the FCC, he's wiping out these rules. They're buying AOL and Yahoo, which is just...

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Pause for laughter.

• 30:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Their whole plan with that is to build an ad tech stack to compete with Google and Facebook. I think all they're gonna do is say like, "We built an ad tech stack, we've integrated it into the network, the Verizon network, don't buy ads from Google, buy ads from us because we can track customers better than everybody else." And they're, the regulatory framework is, they're clearing the decks of everything that would stop them from doing that. And their argument, which is amazing, is, "Well, Google built a business on the internet selling advertising and tracking you, why can't we?" And the answer is that Google provides you services for free in addition to tracking, like in exchange.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Well, but the other thing is, Google's ad track, Google's tracking, this is like, this is a bad metaphor, but I'm going with it. And then you're gonna hit me, because you're gonna be mad at me.

• 30:48Nilay Patel?

  Finally, some violence on the show.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  All of the ad tech, right now, is over the top. It's not built into the core of what the network is.

• 30:58Nilay Patel?

  Right. If you don't want Google to track you, there's ways to get around it.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't use Google.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say, don't use Google.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Use an ad blocker. It's all stuff that is like on top of the core of like what the internet is. The internet is like TCP IP and HTTP and like, you know, all that stuff.

• 31:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  That, acronyms. The internet is acronyms.

• 31:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  It's the thing you need to know.

• 31:16Nilay Patel?

  It's mostly letters.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:18Nilay Patel?

  But increasingly pictures as well.

• 31:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's mostly letters.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  But now, if Verizon wants to make, like, add to all like the core technologies that make the internet run, just put in ads and tracking.

• 31:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Like, that's the move.

• 31:36Nilay Patel?

  And I think the other ISPs are all gonna do it too, because they're gonna see the business. And they're gonna say, "We have this data about what you do. It's the same kind of data that Google and Facebook collect. We want to monetize it in the same way." The difference is, if you're a Verizon customer, you can't just stop it.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:52Nilay Patel?

  It's very hard. Whereas if you're a Facebook customer and you hate Facebook, you can stop it.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  You stop using the service, right.

• 31:57Nilay Patel?

  And I, I just think that is actually, I agree with Dieter. I don't know why the world is not on fire. How many of you trust your ISP out here? Anybody, like, any Comcast employees out here? Not seeing any hands for the record. I just assume Comcast follows me around with a sniper at all times. They're just waiting. They're like, alright, like, phone it, like Brian Roberts. At my command. Yeah. He's got it. He's like, "Just do it." He's annoying again. Disclosure, Comcast invests in our company, Buzz Media. There it is. That's your disclosure for the day, everybody. But honestly, how many of you like really trust your broadband provider to have your best interests at heart? Right? How many of you really trust your wireless carrier to not fuck you over at the first?

• 32:38Speaker 02

  I see no hands raised here in the audience. How many people just really don't often think about this stuff, be honest?

• 32:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah. Right? So, to me, it's just one of those things. But how many of you worry about Google and your privacy, right? How many of you worry about Facebook and privacy?

• 32:54Speaker 02

  A lot of them.

• 32:54Nilay Patel?

  Why is that? Because the explicit nature of the exchange that you make with Google and Facebook is Gmail is free, but Google gets to read your email. Whatever it is the fuck that Facebook does is free.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  But like, they get your pictures and your status messages, and you think about that exchange and the value that you give to them in exchange for what they give to you. No one thinks about that. What most people think about is, "I pay my internet provider some money, and they provide me with a set of bad experiences," and often overcharge me and cause me to pay more money.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  And really, really interesting customer service calls. Yeah, you pay for those, too.

• 33:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like, the thing that you get...

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Comcast actually started training actors to make those even more exciting. They're gonna, they're gonna get to do all the ads tracking stuff that Google and Facebook get to do, and they get to charge you money for the privilege of being tracked. It's a pretty good business.

• 33:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It actually is. I will say this, it sounds like a great business. Like, I wish that I had thought of it and started Verizon.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  They're just gonna use all the parts of the cow, man.

• 33:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah. So what's the move? Because last night, we were talking about this. Dieter looked distraught, despondent. Because the last time that net neutrality stuff happened, there was this huge outcry, there was push, there was angry articles.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Websites blacked out.

• 34:08Nilay Patel?

  Websites blacked out. Why isn't any of that happening right now?

• 34:11Speaker 01

  I don't know. Like...

• 34:13Nilay Patel?

  Is it Trump is too distracting in general?

• 34:15Speaker 01

  I think Trump is too distracting. I think that the thing that happened with, like, SOPA and PIPA and even net neutrality is there were crystallizing moments that were very easy to rally around and say, "Hey, this is happening. Stop this thing." And people can do that. But this is not, like, the crystallizing moments look smaller and are happening in a miasma of other shit that's going on.

• 34:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  And so, it's like, it's just accretive. And so, if, you know, they're boiling the frog, basically, and we're the frog.

• 34:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Not that that metaphor is actually true.

• 34:46Nilay Patel?

  Data Frog.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Data Frog.

• 34:48Nilay Patel?

  That's my new startup. I'm watching it here at South by Southwest.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  I think a lot of people...

• 34:50Speaker 04

  I'm 100% sure Data Frog is already a company. There will be tweets at you within five minutes with a link to their website.

• 34:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I just Googled data grog, which is different things.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just gonna say, my boyfriend works in fraud, and he says, on a regular basis, people misinterpret what he's saying as frog protection, not fraud protection. So that is a common thing. But I think what you're talking about, I think, A, there's some very complicated technical issues that people on some fundamental level may not understand, including journalists. And it's something that we all have to really read into and research. I think some people just demonstrated it's not something they're really thinking about regularly. And I think, to your point, the whole boiling the frog analogy, the frog protection. You know, you're saying this is going through Congress, and Congress is likely going to roll this back, but there have been a lot of things proposed in the past few months, and people have said, "Well, that bill's never gonna pass." And I think a lot of people just kind of have that attitude, or that understanding

• 35:45Speaker 02

  of how government works in general, that things don't necessarily get pushed through. And so maybe, some of the lack of reaction is due to that, too. People thinking, "Well, this isn't actually gonna happen, even though it sounds like it is."

• 35:56Speaker 03

  Can I just say, I'm so excited when these nice people go home and like, "Oh, how was your South by?" They're gonna be like, "Well, I went to this ad tech podcast inside the National Geographic House, and it had an open bar." Like, that just makes me excited.

• 36:08Nilay Patel?

  That is South by Southwest. That's like fundamentally what happens here.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 36:13Nilay Patel?

  Look, here's what I want this podcast to provide over the next year: a crippling sense of anxiety.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  I think I just heard people drinking more. You can actually hear people drink.

• 36:23Speaker 03

  Isn't that, that's like every podcast for me now. Like, even like the ones I used to like.

• 36:27Nilay Patel?

  Okay, speaking of podcasts, let me talk about Anchor. You are obsessed with it. This is, this is nice.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  This is, this is a fun, social app. I encourage you to check it out.

• 36:35Nilay Patel?

  It tracks everything you do.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. At the packet level. It's basically Snapchat stories for audio. They're a couple of years old, they just released a new version, it's really nice. And the basic idea is you record a short snippet of yourself, talking about whatever you like, and then you can dress up your clips with music, or these professionally-recorded sound effects, where people can call into your show, and you can add their comments onto your own clip, and so you can have kind of a radio vibe. So, you know, the problem with most of the audio social apps that I've tried so far is that everything just sounds like a really long voicemail. But it turns out that if you put enough effects on it, it does kind of start to feel more like a professionally-produced podcast, more like radio. And so, they're having a, kind of having a moment right now, and it's a, it's a fun new thing, and I like fun new social things that aren't just Snapchat clones.

• 37:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, my favorite thing about it, like, all these new apps, is it lowers the barrier to entry. So it's actually really easy to use and like distribute this other form of thing. I really want us to start using it in various ways. Yeah. Mostly just Casey ranting at things as he walks around. It's like crazy rants. But it's legitimately one of the first apps I've seen in a long time that is not, as you said, not a clone of something else. But also makes it easier to create and distribute like stuff in a way that feels real as opposed to forced, like, ALO. I hate to keep picking on ALO. By the way, in my mind, you are just a one-to-one ALO representative. You are ALO. This is your fault. Can we, can he be on the show tomorrow?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  We need to take your picture.

• 38:03Nilay Patel?

  You work at Google.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  And every time we write about ALO, we're gonna use you.

• 38:06Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god, it's his birthday!

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Happy birthday!

• 38:10Nilay Patel?

  Did the robots tell you that?

• 38:11Speaker 02

  You are that guy in the front row at a comedy show right now that just the comedian picked on and you're just gonna get roasted for the rest of this show. I hope you don't, you don't mind.

• 38:19Nilay Patel?

  It's fine, ALO will calm him down later. We'll soothe him. I was insulted today. No, but like that interaction to me feels really forced, right? Like, we're gonna create a new way for everybody to talk to the internet. You have to download this messaging app, you have to think about talking to a robot. Anchor is one of those things where it feels like, oh, this is the thing I've actually always wanted to do. On the flip side, it is also just voicemail. Like, it's basically just like, I'm gonna lead a long string of public voicemails for people. Yeah. Maybe that's what we need in our lives.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe that's what we're all missing. Personally, I think we're missing jelly in our lives.

• 38:56Nilay Patel?

  Okay, wait, speaking of voicemail, that was all just a long build-up. Paul is not here with us. I think you may have noticed that, audience, unless you've assumed that he's like hiding in the corner. Paul didn't make it to that by, but he basically left us a voicemail because he does a segment every week on the show. It's the same, same name every week. Same name every week. I've asked that we all dim the lights, if that is still possible, Andrew. Out of respect. Out of respect.

• 39:21Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's roll it. Let's run Paul's segment.

• 39:23Speaker 05

  Dear Neelai and Dieter, this is Paul. How are you? I'm fine. Thanks for inviting me to South by Southwest, or as I like to call it, Southie South. Sorry I couldn't come. The thing is, I just hate barbecue tacos and live music, in that order. I do love brand activations, though. Sorry to miss out on those. Is there a wrecking ball this year? I hope there's a wrecking ball. Hit me up on Snapchat if you find it. There's a segment I do every week, no matter if I'm physically present or just back at home not doing much and wondering how my good friends Neelai and Dieter are doing when they're far away. It's called "Friendship is Like a Couric."

• 40:04Speaker 05

  This week, Ashley Carmen reviewed a smart garden for the home that is, it's not hydroponic. You subscribe to these soil pods and they grow plants out of the soil pods. And it's kind of like a couric. It's called a Click & Grow's Wall Farm Mini. And it's pretty cool. And I wish I was with you so we can talk about it and laugh about it. But I guess you just have to go to the website, theverge.com/circuitbreaker and just look it up. But it's a good one. It's a real good review. She did a great job. And I think farming is a good metaphor for the things that we care about.

• 40:46Speaker 05

  So have a good time at Southie South and say hi to the wrecking ball for me. Your friend, Paul.

• 40:52Nilay Patel?

  Paul, Paul.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  Thanks, Paul.

• 40:54Nilay Patel?

  We miss you, Paul. Say hi to the wrecking ball for me, Paul. Was that here? I was like, listening to that.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  Yes. It was, I believe, two years ago at the Mashable House. There was a wrecking ball because Miley Cyrus's "Wrecking Ball" was a new, fun new song at the time. And famously, AOL's digital prophet Shingy rode the wrecking ball in a now iconic Southie South photo.

• 41:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Do you ever get the feeling Mashable exists just to employ Sam Sheffer?

• 41:18Speaker 03

  100%. And I'm gonna say, not the worst use of their money.

• 41:22Nilay Patel?

  They started that whole thing and they're like, "We don't know what this is for." But one day, Sam is gonna make this make sense.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  So that it could actualize Sam.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  In my dream, by the end of this year, they just rename it Sheffable.

• 41:33Nilay Patel?

  We can make that happen.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  Let's do it. Let's get hashtag shuffable trending on all the social media, please.

• 41:39Nilay Patel?

  All right, Dieter.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:41Nilay Patel?

  I don't think we've talked about this a lot on the show. Lauren, I'm curious what you think, too. The Galaxy S8 is just leaked. It's just out. It's just everywhere in the world.

• 41:49Speaker 04

  It just exploded onto the scene.

• 41:51Nilay Patel?

  I feel so bad for them.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, I feel really bad for the giant faceless multinational corporation that just brought down the South Korean president. When are those guys gonna catch a break?

• 42:04Nilay Patel?

  Fair. It is just really complex. Like, Sam Byford wrote that piece about what happened.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  I wrote the piece like four times. It was like, here's the guy, and he's gonna be the guy, but then there's like some corruption, and also there's a cult.

• 42:15Nilay Patel?

  I definitely used my like editor-in-chief power. I was like, I really need a flowchart. Can you go back and publish a flowchart in this piece? And they're like, that'll be really hard to make. They put one in there. It's still very confusing.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:28Nilay Patel?

  But yes, Samsung, which is embroiled in a bribery corruption scandal that literally did just bring down a president of South Korea.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Embroiled like on fire.

• 42:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. These jokes will never stop coming. They really think it's over. I think Samsung is like, yep, handled that explosion.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have an eight-point checking system now, and moving along.

• 42:47Nilay Patel?

  It's like, we're gonna make sure they don't explode by looking at them real close. But the thing is leaking everywhere.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:53Nilay Patel?

  It's a big moment for them.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:55Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. What do you think?

• 42:56Speaker 01

  I think that's what phones look like now. Like, all the leaks are like, it's a big screen, and there's no buttons on the front. And, I don't know, it's fine. Like, the thing that we saw is like, we definitely know for sure that like the home button fingerprint, or the power button fingerprint sensor is on the back, literally right next to the camera lens.

• 43:13Nilay Patel?

  Very confusing. Don't understand that choice at all.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, there're gonna be a lot of smudges on those pictures. You know what I mean?

• 43:17Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be awful for the two weeks you have it before it explodes.

• 43:24Nilay Patel?

  It's just sitting there.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  You know what I love about Samsung is even though all the jokes are easy, they're still funny. It's never not funny that the phone's exploded.

• 43:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  So, uh...

• 43:35Speaker 04

  Funny thing.

• 43:35Nilay Patel?

  It's awful for the people whose phones explode.

• 43:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's sad.

• 43:38Nilay Patel?

  But I think they still found some joy in it.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  How can you not? I'll be honest, if my iPhone exploded, I'd be like, "That is badass as hell." I would've gotten a second phone, I would've find it back, you know?

• 43:49Nilay Patel?

  I saw Casey...

• 43:50Speaker 02

  That would've been their worst nightmare.

• 43:51Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna tell the story. It might be a little out of bounds when I tell the story. I saw Casey and I sat last night, and I asked him what phone he was using, and he's like, "I have an S7, I don't like it." He doesn't like the radius of the curve on the edge. He's like, "I just don't like it, I asked for the regular S7, but what I really wanted was the Note 7." And Samsung was so afraid that Casey and I sat would, like, be exploded, that they personally went to him, they're like, "You have to give us this Note 7."

• 44:16Speaker 02

  They shut up at the store.

• 44:17Nilay Patel?

  And he, like, fought them. He was like, "No, I love it." And, like, Samsung was like, "No, this'll be really bad if you explode." Like, you're very famous.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 44:25Speaker 04

  Give us the phone. That must be so amazing, where there's just a knock at the door, and there's just two men from Samsung there, like, with a briefcase, they're, like, kind of buff.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  Sir, we need to see the Note 7.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Give us the phone. The one thing I will say about whatever the S8 brings is that you know that whatever Samsung does, it's going to be very conservative around the battery, because they don't want another exploding phone, they have to make up for the disaster that was the Note. And that's unfortunate, because battery technology is something that generally does not improve much year over year. I mean, lithium ion battery technology specifically generally just gets better, but in, like, single-digit percentages, maybe, maybe 10% better a year, right? And companies have to do all kinds of creative things with software and processors to try to get you the most battery life possible. And this is not, likely not going to be an advancement year because of everything that happened. It's going to be a year where it's like, "Okay, the battery just works and doesn't explode, and that's it."

• 45:20Speaker 01

  So the LG G6, which everybody except Vergecast listeners have forgotten about, because it was really extended to what all LG phones do, which is disappear.

• 45:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Vergecast listeners... It's out, yeah, you can't buy it.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Well, whatever.

• 45:31Nilay Patel?

  I'm sure they're gonna try and market the phone.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  We only know, we only care about it because it was the inspiration for Scissor Vodka.

• 45:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, sniffed out through the night.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 45:39Nilay Patel?

  Why are we not drinking vodka? What the fuck is wrong with us?

• 45:42Speaker 01

  They-

• 45:43Nilay Patel?

  In the most brand-activated environment in the entire world, we didn't drink vodka for-

• 45:48Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, we'll do better.

• 45:49Nilay Patel?

  12:30 in the afternoon.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  That stops me from drinking this beer. Uh, they explicitly said, they, when they told me about the G6, like, they, they talked for like 20 minutes about the metal frame around the battery, and they said they could have got, put a bigger battery in it. They could have crammed more battery in it and chose not to, because they knew, because the carriers did not have the risk tolerance to do it. So like, that thing could have longer battery life. They chose to put a smaller battery in it. I am sure that Samsung's gonna do the same thing.

• 46:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and I'm sure Samsung's deal with all the carriers this year is like, basically a single sheet. It's on you.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:26Nilay Patel?

  It is time.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:27Nilay Patel?

  You promise, right? And they're like, no one runs this company. They're all in jail.

• 46:33Nilay Patel?

  Like, they already got punished.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  No, the only thing we really, like, there's some details about like, what's it like without a home button on the front? Stuff that we don't know. But the big thing we don't know is the nerdiest thing, which is-

• 46:43Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  How is that Dex desktop thing gonna work? It's called Dex, right?

• 46:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Right?

• 46:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, this is, we have talked about this.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:50Nilay Patel?

  A thousand, not Dex in particular, but the Dream, where you take your phone, you plug it into a dock and it becomes a computer. This is like the Continuum Dream? Yes. Or the, okay. And Tom Warren just reviewed, has a terrible name, the HP Elite X3 Pro 25 Enterprise Edition. Just keep running off numbers and letters, you'll get there. Or GLTE, Max Touch.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  The Continuum stuff isn't great. Because it's just your phone shit blown up and they're like, it's a little bit more desktop-y, but the thing you want is a, you, the thing you want is desktop Chrome.

• 47:22Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Right? That's, otherwise-

• 47:25Nilay Patel?

  Wait, wait, what do you want?

• 47:27Speaker 01

  WebOS. WebOS.

• 47:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  And I'm just gonna go lay down.

• 47:29Nilay Patel?

  Thank you, I'll pay your 20 bucks. I was a prearranged troll.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  I haven't brought up Palm at all on this podcast.

• 47:37Nilay Patel?

  I know. I made the signal. That's why I started screaming.

• 47:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but that's what you want. You want a desktop web browser. No mobile product offers that.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:46Nilay Patel?

  Samsung isn't going to be able to offer that to you. Are you kidding me?

• 47:48Speaker 01

  They totally could. Motorola did it four years ago with the Atrix. They had four FireFox.

• 47:52Nilay Patel?

  And that was a rip-roaring success, selling themselves to Google and then being sold off for scrap to Lenovo. That's what they were like. Lenovo was like, you know what you want is that fucking Atrix tech.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Their desktop mode is going to be pretty useless. It's going to be pretty bad. But it is going to be a feature bullet that is going to maybe sell a few more phones because people will think of the dream. They're like, oh, my God, I could do this thing. And then they'll do the thing and it'll be like, eh, it's not very good. And then they'll never do the thing, but they'll still have the dream.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  So what you're saying is it's another Trello card for us?

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we have to write a story about the dream. It's like an ongoing Trello card that we have, like write about dream.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:29Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. So here's my big question. This is a trend that virtually every mobile operating system and manufacturer, except for Apple, has engaged with in some way.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 48:41Nilay Patel?

  Right? So Motorola has done it. Samsung has thought about doing it. Microsoft pinned its hopes and dreams on it. That was great. We all really enjoyed that. Google, it seems like they're trying to...

• 48:53Speaker 01

  They're doing it from the other direction by putting Android apps on Chrome, but yeah.

• 48:55Nilay Patel?

  Is everyone doing that just because it's a thing to do or because it's a good idea?

• 48:58Speaker 01

  I think it's because nobody has any more ideas for software. They're like, well, we've done everything we could think of on the phone and we've definitely done everything we can think of on a computer. So let's just start taking stuff from the one and putting in the other and vice versa. Like, that's been the story of macOS for the past two years. They've done nothing to macOS that's interesting, except like slap some iPhone crap on it.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Right. They made the mouse cursor a lot bigger when you move it really quickly.

• 49:25Nilay Patel?

  That never works for me.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Which is really exciting. They color-coded labels. I mean, they labeled, I don't know.

• 49:30Nilay Patel?

  This is definitely only working like 10% of the time.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  They didn't do much. No, I think it has to do also with the way people are consuming apps, the way people are just obsessed with mobile apps and are showing, you know...

• 49:41Nilay Patel?

  Are they still obsessed with mobile apps?

• 49:42Speaker 02

  I think so. I mean, I think we've sort of tapped out in terms of how many each of us use on a single device. But just in terms of people have shown they're willing to spend money on apps and app stores. App stores are making money. I think that has... I think there are some things that maybe... Have been done in terms of just privacy on mobile from the ground up that maybe are starting to influence the way things are being done on desktops. I don't know, I mean, maybe I'm just taking a sort of optimistic view and saying, yes, these tech executives definitely have an idea of what they're doing in the merging of mobile OSs and desktop OSs.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  I...

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Which is probably not the case, and maybe they're just throwing a lot of mud at the wall, but I think we're, like, it's the way we use these that is driving that at the end of the day.

• 50:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Casey, what do you think?

• 50:25Speaker 03

  I think that there is a world where the technology gets good enough that Apple can essentially put Mac OS and iOS on the same device. You plug it into a dock, it shows up, and maybe it justifies them charging you another, like, three, $400 on your phone. It's like a sort of mega-premium iPhone Extreme.

• 50:43Nilay Patel?

  I don't think they would. Apple of all companies is never doing that.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  Never.

• 50:46Nilay Patel?

  Where you plug a monitor into your phone and it just becomes a Mac?

• 50:48Speaker 03

  I don't know, I mean, I think, well, what makes the Samsung thing interesting is if it generates enough attention to put pressure on them in the same way a larger Galaxy put pressure on them to release a larger phone, right? Like, they're not immune to the competitive pressures out there, and I think that somebody probably will develop a pretty good phone that is also a pretty good desktop operating system. It's just a lot more likely to look like a Chromebook than a sort of full-fledged Mac OS, at least in the next five years.

• 51:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  But then I look at something like this, which is super light...

• 51:20Speaker 01

  This is my little MacBook, by the way, listeners.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  I know, it's a 12-inch MacBook, super light, doesn't have the world's best processor, I think it's CoreM, right? If I remember correctly. But you look at this and it's essentially a shell for your desktop operating experience, right? This doesn't really take anything... I'm having a hard time articulating this right now.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  The circuit board is like not that much bigger than a phone's circuit board.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  It's just a battery and a screen.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  And it's not much for you to carry this around South by Southwest, you know, it doesn't hurt your ba... It's not ridiculously heavy, it's not ridiculously cumbersome or anything like that. So I look at something like that and I'm like, well, why not just carry this around like you're doing, rather than expecting this to run a full desktop operating system?

• 51:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And it's, Dieter, did you bring a tablet with you? You brought your Switch?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  I brought a Switch, yeah.

• 52:02Nilay Patel?

  I think the Switch is gonna destroy tablets. It's the most optimistic reading of that thing, because Nintendo probably can't make enough to sell.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:11Nilay Patel?

  Because that is the Nintendo story. But it's not a device that can play good games and can run Netflix, which it should be able to do in a year or so.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:17Nilay Patel?

  Why would you buy your kids any other thing?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  It'll destroy Android tablets, which is not a hard thing to do. But there's no way that'll ever, like, there's no way the software, like, the tablet stuff on it is ever gonna approach, like, iPad status. That's not happening.

• 52:35Nilay Patel?

  But I think the future of the iPad is like enterprise apps.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:38Nilay Patel?

  Right? It's the, like, the guy from the gas company is like, "I've come to check your meat", and then he, like, types, like, it's that sort of, like, single-purpose experience. Whereas I, I just, for consumers, like, I don't, I have an iPad. I have not thought about buying a new iPad. They can put out as many new iPads as they want, and I don't know what I would do with that new one.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  When I, when I got, when I, when I was packing to come here yesterday, I definitely, like, packed all my stuff and then laid out on my bed my iPad, my Switch, and my Kindle e-reader. And I just sat there and stared at them for a while.

• 53:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Speaker 03

  This is the saddest story I've ever heard.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  And you're like, "Fuck words. I like pictures."

• 53:17Nilay Patel?

  And I took the Switch.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  I live in the future.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  And then you look at your neural ski cap and you decide to use that instead.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  But I think what you want to do with a tablet when you travel, you want to watch Netflix.

• 53:26Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna get you a t-shirt that says "Fuck words", but it'll be written.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:29Nilay Patel?

  So you get the whole...

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  Wait, explain it again.

• 53:31Nilay Patel?

  Because you can't express that in a photo.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  You can't express it in a photo.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  I don't get it.

• 53:34Nilay Patel?

  I would like all of you to send me a photo that you think expresses the concept of "fuck words". You just tweet at me, I'm at Reckless, I'm dying to see what this looks like. Your mentions are about to get weird. Yeah, that's what Twitter is for, being a little disturbed. Yeah. So lastly, we're kind of running out of time here. Okay, so I want you to talk about Twitch, because there's a bunch of Twitch things happening.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:56Nilay Patel?

  They launched a Twitter clone, they hired somebody from Twitter.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  The guy who had the best Twitter client for Android, then he went to work for Twitter, and then he bailed on Twitter for, like, after, like, six months.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this is my secret conspiracy theory, which I sort of only maybe 70% believe.

• 54:08Nilay Patel?

  Is it about ad tech?

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Only ad tech conspiracy theories are allowed.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  It all comes back to ad tech. Hear me out. Um, so Twitch is the streaming service owned by Amazon. It is most famous for being a place where people livestream games. It kind of does some YouTube-like things, but they introduced a feature called Pulse This Week, which enables you to, if you're a broadcaster or you just have a, an account on the platform, you can just write text, you can send images, you can send gifs and other memes. Or you can promote your broadcast by actually including the videos and it appears on the homepage, or at least it's rolling out now in kind of reverse chronological order. It's just like a baby Twitter. And then, right after that happened, yes, they hired the Twitter Android developer. So, I don't think Amazon is necessarily trying to destroy

• 54:55Speaker 03

  Twitter, but I think at the very least-

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Also, the easiest thing to do.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  About, well-

• 55:00Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what's easier to destroy, Android tablets or Twitter?

• 55:02Speaker 03

  It's a good question. I mean, actually, a lot of things have tried to destroy Twitter and nothing quite has. But it does look like a wounded gazelle out there. But what I would say-

• 55:11Nilay Patel?

  Just limping along.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just like, hmm. And if you're like Jeff Bezos-

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Good Nat Geo reference.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can kind of, uh-

• 55:19Nilay Patel?

  That's good.

• 55:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:21Nilay Patel?

  Really? You were in the Nat Geo space for an hour and you started just doing wildlife-

• 55:24Speaker 03

  That's right. Yeah, I promised them I'd get in at least one wildlife reference before the end of the show and now I've fulfilled my contractual obligation.

• 55:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:33Speaker 03

  So, anyway, I just think it's interesting to think about, you know, has Amazon essentially pulled an Instagram stories on Twitter where they've kind of taken the part of Twitter that would be most interesting to their user base and how they've just built it into their own product. How much further are they gonna go with this? They just released a desktop app this week, which is sort of another thing you need to do if you want to replace Twitter. But after I wrote about this, some people started tweeting at me saying, "Well, no, they're really just trying to go after Discord, which is this kind of separate experience that people use to have voice chat during their multiplayer gaming." So, it's like all kind of a mystery box. Like, I just love the idea that Bezos is like, "Fuck it, I'm just gonna go rebuild Twitter." And if I were gonna do it, like Twitch is exactly the kind of wedge you need, just with like, an insanely rabid community that's already looking at something for eight hours a day.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Well, the interesting idea there is that you don't, they don't necessarily have to, like, replace Twitter to be successful, but they basically, like, it's like Dropbox. Like, Steve Jobs famously didn't buy Dropbox because he said, "You're not a company, you're a feature." And maybe that's fundamentally the problem with Twitter. Twitter isn't a company, it's a feature.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Can you imagine Twitter or an Amazon clone, Twitter clone on Amazon, not for Twitch? Like, "Just bought Glad trash bags. Just ordered more kitty litter with my ashtray."

• 56:46Speaker 03

  E-commerce social network. Well, there was that-

• 56:49Nilay Patel?

  The dream of South by Southwest. Again, if there's one place where you could, you should just wander the streets. There's a lot of dumb money here, man.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  I mean, actually, like, Venmo is arguably the e-commerce social network, right?

• 57:00Nilay Patel?

  Don't do that to me, man.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's not get into it. Let's not get into it. We only have 13 seconds left.

• 57:06Nilay Patel?

  All right, well, with those 13 seconds, we'll wrap it up. We're doing this again in two days, so apologies to all of you. We'll punish a new group of people in a couple of days. But there's a bunch of other podcasts to listen to, most of which are superior to this one. For example, Lauren Good's podcast, to be honest. You talked about it earlier. You had Mary Lou Jepson on.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Yes, we had Mary Lou Jepson on yesterday. Kara Swisher and I are in this exact space. And the video's available online right now. The audio will be soon. Mary Lou Jepson, for those of you who don't know, she's brilliant. She's a display technology expert who has worked for Facebook, Oculus, Google X. And she's now doing this really cool imaging startup called Open Water, where we did talk about, she did a TED Talk about this. It's crazy stuff, like being able to read your neural activity. So I highly encourage you to go check that out. We got some great questions from the audience, too.

• 57:52Nilay Patel?

  And then Recode Decode with Kara Swisher is happening on this stage.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  That's right, tomorrow, I believe.

• 57:58Nilay Patel?

  Tomorrow.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  The Veep, the members of Veep, the producers, writers.

• 58:01Nilay Patel?

  And then We're Mac, which is great. But then you can also listen to Recode Media. Peter Kafka did that yesterday with Glenn Beck, which is really interesting. And then I host a show, Control Alt Delete, with one Mr. Walt Mossberg. You can listen to that. All that's on iTunes. You can find it all if you're here at South by. Just come rolling back through this space.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  There's another Vergecast happening.

• 58:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm just... We're mumbling over that because we don't have...

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Tuesday, come back here Tuesday.

• 58:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, well, the ALO guy's gonna come back.

• 58:29Nilay Patel?

  He's gonna bring his one friend who also has ALO. You have to change your Twitter handle to ALO Guy. Anyway, that's our show. Thank you, guys, all so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be back in a couple of days. We love you, Austin. Rock and roll. Paul.