Issue 2.2 – Twitter hits the stock market.

A look back, to learn what’s next. By Augur.

Issue 2.2 – Twitter hits the stock market.

The tech world is naturally drawn to novelty. But too often, this makes it easy to lose perspective. How can we understand the importance of today’s events without considering those that came before?

Every seven days, we take a look at this week’s news in previous years to see what we can learn. Feedback to augur+lookback@augur.london


2015

With the Surface Book, Microsoft is taking the game to Apple
Microsoft did something shocking last night. It launched something people might actually lust over, something sleek,…

Funny to think Google is a year late in taking an Apple-style product approach, behind *Microsoft*.

I’m a big believer in big M though. Still a nice hearty enterprise core and they seem to have managed to create value from acquisitions like Sunrise and Minecraft in a way Yahoo singularly failed to do.

Doesn’t mean they have an easy ride though, with redundancies becoming clear this week as people I knew there hit my inbox with their freelance addresses…

Twitter names Jack Dorsey as chief executive - BBC News
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has been confirmed as the permanent chief executive of Twitter. He served as the interim…

That went well. As I write this, the stock market is literally waiting to reopen and punish Twitter’s price now Google apparently is no longer interested.

While all the Twitter founders were arguably just right place/ right time, I maintain that Dorsey was an unfortunate Jobs wannabe vs Ev.

Ev has a consistent history and a consistent mission: take something people are currently trying to do online and provide a new way: blogger, twitter, medium (branch for comments too, before it died.)

Twitter launches its assault on news with Moments
Twitter has launched Moments, a new service which hopes to show users the day's most popular stories, as the…

Just went live for all users to make their own this week – but it’s hard to see how this is that different from Storify.

Feels like a hacked together version of “Custom Timelines” (est 2013) and another struggled attempt at something they even tried with Hashtag pages back in 2012 (!)


2013

Tweeter shares rocket 1,800% after news of Twitter's IPO
Shares in failed electronics retail chain Tweeter Home Entertainment Group soared after Twitter announced it was…

Oops.

Apple Buys Cue For Over $40M To Compete With Google Now
Personal assistant app Cue has been acquired, we've confirmed with a person who should know. The app has sold for…

While this never surfaced quite as visibly as Siri, there’s a good chance much of the improved Spotlight Search functionality came from this. Especially important on iPad Pro.


2012

Facebook Tops 1 Billion Monthly Active Users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg Shares A Personal Note
Social network Facebook officially hit the 1 billion active monthly user mark, the company announced today. In a post on…

Got to say, still actually appreciate this ad. And it says a lot about Facebook that it went from claiming to be a “utility” to something more like a comforting entertainment device.

Has only become more true every since.

1889

Thomas Edison shows the first motion picture.

VR eat your hear out.


You have been reading The Lookback, by Max and Sam at Augur.

If you enjoyed it, think about recommending this post below or sharing it with the wider world. With your help, we can build something cool.