Your Tech Story

Jack Dorsey

Twitter

Jack Dorsey’s New ‘Decentralized’ Twitter Hits the App Store

More beta testers are getting access to Bluesky, the Twitter substitute supported by Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter. Even though the application is still only accessible via invite, its appearance on the App Store suggests that a public debut may be close.

Initially intended to be a “decentralized social network” and a Twitter extension, Bluesky eventually split off to create its own network.

Twitter
Image Source: coinscreed.com

Early in the previous year, the company made the announcement that it had become independent, writing on Twitter, “Both Twitter and Bluesky realized that our independence is important to the success of the project, which is why we established an independent company to ensure that we serve the broadest possible interests.”

Also Read: Twitter Cuts More Engineering, and Product Jobs to Curb Costs

Last year, Bluesky reported receiving $13 million to guarantee it had the autonomy and liberty to begin working on R&D. It also mentioned having Jack Dorsey on its board of directors. Furthermore, it stated that the funding provided by Twitter to Bluesky was “not subject to any conditions except one: that Bluesky was to research and develop technologies that enable open and decentralized public conversation.”

Authenticated Transfer Protocol, or AT, is Bluesky’s primary focus, and the Bluesky mobile app functions as a demonstration of the protocol in use. AT gives users the ability to build a federated, decentralized social network in a manner akin to the ActivityPub system that powers Mastodon.

The project has drawn some criticism, particularly from Mastodon and other devs who noted that ActivityPub, a suggested W3C standard, already drives a sizable and expanding “Fediverse” of connected servers. And since Musk bought Twitter, Mastodon, an open-source, decentralized alternative, has been growing in popularity among Twitter users who switched to the fediverse.

Users who want to participate can send their emails to be added to a waiting list and download the Beta app from the App Store, which is available only by invitation.

The interface of Bluesky, according to TechCrunch, is similar to that of Twitter with a few minor variations, such as asking “What’s up?” in the text box rather than “What’s happening,” but it simplifies it through the addition of a plus icon to add 256 characters with the feature to add pictures.

Moving to Bluesky might be seen as a hassle given the destruction of much more than a decade’s worth of tweets, recollections, and hot takes, leading users to wonder why they should do so. In 2021, during the Twitter ban imposed by then-president Donald Trump, Dorsey began pushing the concept of Bluesky. He challenged if the suspension was the best course of action.

Also Read: Uber’s Redesigned App Puts The Focus On Personalization

An open and free global internet can’t be eroded by these things, according to Dorsey, who also argued that the platform should examine how its service might encourage damage and diversion.

Dorsey stated that he thought Bluesky would separate from Twitter in a manner that would slow content moderation on larger platforms and lessen their influence over who is in charge of moderating that content.

bluesky

Jack Dorsey to take on Elon Musk’s Twitter with new app Bluesky

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, is apparently testing another social networking application Bluesky to compete with Twitter.

Image Source: techtimes.com

Just as Elon Musk wraps up his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, a small tech company created by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has revealed the creation of a new social media app. Earlier this month, Bluesky announced that it would soon release a beta version of its Bluesky Social app.

Dorsey’s latest social media platform aims to be “a competitor to any company trying to own the underlying fundamentals for social media or the data of the people using it.” According to the press release, the new app will make use of the federated social network known as the Authenticated Transfer Protocol (AT Protocol), which is hosted by numerous sites instead of just one.

Bluesky announced, “The next step is to start testing the protocol. Distributed protocol development is a tricky process. It requires coordination from many parties once a network is deployed, so we’re going to start in private beta to iron out issues. As we beta test, we’ll continue to iterate on the protocol specs and share details about how it works. When it’s ready, we’ll move to the open beta.”

The company stated in its press release, “The word ‘Bluesky’ evokes a wide-open space of possibility. It was the original name for this project before it took shape, and continues to be the name of our company. We’re calling the application we’re building Bluesky because it will be a portal to the world of possibility on top of the AT Protocol.”

Jack Dorsey originally introduced Bluesky in December 2019, as Silicon Valley was bracing for a global “techlash” and a wave of disinformation and election meddling around the 2020 US election. Twitter, like all other big social networks, was battling a conundrum on how to control the voice of millions of users without running the danger of overreaching.

In order to build “an open and decentralized standard for social media,” Dorsey claimed Twitter would sponsor a “small independent team” of five software developers, with the eventual objective of transforming Twitter itself to this standard. Importantly, Twitter does not hold a majority stake in BlueSky. It has reportedly gotten $13 m in financing from Twitter as of April of this year, with the sole stipulation that its research is continued.

In a Q&A at the time, Dorsey stated that the primary and long-term objective is to create a sustainable and open framework for public conversation. Without any involvement from Twitter, Bluesky is controlled by its team itself. Bluesky aims to create a decentralized social network protocol so that various social media networks, each with its own systems of moderation and curation, can communicate with one another using an open standard.

Bluesky has been in the research stage since 2021, with 40–50 members of the decentralized technology community working to evaluate choices and putting together protocol ideas.

In 2006, Dorsey co-founded Twitter. He served as CEO of Twitter for a number of years after which he resigned. He was replaced by Parag Agrawal, the company’s CTO at the time. Recently, Agrawal was fired from the company along with the chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, CFO Ned Segal, and the general counsel Sean Edgett shortly after Musk took over Twitter.

Web 5

Jack Dorsey Announces ‘Web 5’, A New Platform Built On Bitcoin-Based Technology.

Bitcoin supporter Jack Dorsey has announced the launch of Web 5, a new online platform that is a combination of the centralized Web 2 and the decentralized Web 3. Square’s TBD subsidiary is developing a suite of BTC-based technologies to help modernize the financial system. The new platform, which is built on Blockchain, is described as a hybrid of Web3 and Web2.0. According to the report, the platform ensures that the security of individual data is a top concern and that no breaches occur. The Block Head or TBD – the Bitcoin-focused subsidiary of Dorsey’s Block (previously SQ) – presented its new concept for a decentralized internet layer on Friday at CoinDesk’s Consensus Festival in Austin, Texas. Let’s take a look at the Web5 platform announced by Jack Dorsey.

What is Web 5?

To put it in a way, the Internet of Things (IoT) means that everything in your life, and I mean everything, may talk to each other about you, in front of your face, behind your back, and without regard for your feelings. It was amusing to wake up to a robot in the guise of a kitty cat, but Web 5.0 would go even further. The Intelligent Web foreshadows what is to come with the emergence of smart devices that estimate your wants based on your patterns without including many clues. Symbiotic web algorithms will be able to analyze data on a more complicated emotional and cognitive level. This is the Web, which coexists with daily life in perfect harmony, operating without thought and spontaneously engaging with our actions. Computers can be turned into robotic assistants via digital realities. IoT can connect all household equipment to the internet, and it predicts that extremely intelligent interactions between machines and humans could be possible via chip implantation in human brains.

Web 5
Image source: twimg.com

While the monetary layer of Web 5 will be based on Bitcoin, the other technologies that support it are drawn from a variety of cryptography and computer science fields.

Identity and personal data have become the property of third parties. Web 5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to individuals’ applications. It lets developers focus on creating delightful user experiences while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals.” TBD said in a statement published with CoinDesk

source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Group of Bitcoin Entrepreneurs the Block Head who reports to Jack Dorsey is in charge of Web5 development. To refresh your memory, Web5 is a platform that empowers people to manage their data and identities.

Although TBD’s new project was unveiled on Friday, it is currently under open-source development and has no set release date. Users will be able to engage with one another without the assistance of intermediaries on Web 5, just as they did on Web 3. In theory, this means that there will be no government censorship or centralized service outages, among other claimed benefits. Web 5 will also strive to provide users with a “decentralized identity,” allowing them to fluidly go from app to app without having to log in each time.

Web5 wants people to have the ability to “own their data,” according to TBH. Consider Riya’s digital wallet, which protects her identity, data, and authorizations for external apps and connections. Riya logs onto a new decentralized social media platform with her wallet. Riya, on the other hand, does not need to establish a profile because she has connected to the app with her decentralized identity, and all of the connections, relationships, and postings she makes through the app are saved in her decentralized web node. Riya can switch apps whenever she wishes using Web5, and her social profile follows her.

Another example is Arjun, a music fan who despises having his data tied to a single vendor. It forces him to re-create his playlists and tunes across many music apps on a regular basis. Fortunately, there is a way out of this maze of vendor-locked silos: Arjun can store this information in his decentralized web node. Arjun may give any music app access to his settings and preferences in this way, allowing him to take his tailored music experience with him everywhere he goes. As a result, Web5 will provide people w control over their data. Meanwhile, Mike Brock, TBD’s Product Lead, stated that “with web5, there are no tokens to invest in.”

Parag Agrawal

Parag Agrawal to replace Jack Dorsey as the new CEO for Twitter.

Twitter announced that Jack Dorsey is stepping down as CEO and that Parag Agrawal has been appointed as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors. Dorsey will remain on the Board of Directors until the 2022 annual meeting of stockholders when his term will come to an end. Bret Taylor has been appointed as the new Chairman of the Board, succeeding Patrick Pichette, who will remain on the Board and chair the Audit Committee. Since 2017, Agrawal has served as Chief Technology Officer at Twitter, where he has worked for more than a decade.
“Because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders, I’ve decided to leave Twitter. I have a lot of faith in Parag as Twitter’s CEO. His work has had a profound impact over the last ten years. I owe him a debt of gratitude for his talent, heart, and soul. It is now his turn to lead “Dorsey stated.
Twitter’s incoming Independent Board Chair, Bret Taylor, stated, “On behalf of the Board, I’d like to express our gratitude to Jack for his visionary leadership and unwavering commitment to Twitter since its inception. Jack returned to Twitter and saved the company at a critical juncture. Since then, the progress has been nothing short of amazing. Jack has left the world with something priceless, and we will continue to carry it on.”
Taylor remarked, “Parag is familiar with Twitter and recognizes its unique potential. He’s been instrumental in tackling some of our most pressing issues, such as increasing our development velocity, and I’m confident he’ll get right to work to improve execution and deliver results. The Board of Directors has complete faith in Parag.”
“I appreciate the Board’s faith in my leadership, as well as Jack’s continued mentorship, support, and partnership,” Agrawal said. “I’m excited to build on everything we’ve accomplished under Jack’s leadership and to seize the opportunities that lie ahead. We will deliver tremendous value to our customers and shareholders by continuing to improve our execution as we reshape the future of public discourse.”

Parag Agrawal
Image source: live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au

Board Updates

Besides Agrawal’s appointment, Twitter has appointed Brett Taylor as independent chair, effective immediately. He has served on the Twitter Board since 2016. Taylor succeeds Patrick Pichette, who will continue to serve as chair of the Audit Committee and as a member of the Board of Directors. Taylor currently serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Salesforce, and has extensive experience in the technology sector, overseeing strategy and technology development.

Financial Outlook

The Company’s previously announced fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 outlooks, as well as its 2023 objectives, remain unchanged. On December 7, 2021, at 9:05 a.m., the Company will speak at the Barclays Global Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Conference. The previously announced virtual fireside chat with Ned Segal, CFO, will include PT. Parag. Twitter’s Investor Relations website, investor.twitterinc.com, will host a live webcast as well as a replay.

About Parag Agrawal

Since October 2017, Parag Agrawal has been the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Twitter, which he joined in 2011. As CTO, he has been in charge of the company’s technical strategy, leading efforts to increase development velocity while also advancing the state of Machine Learning throughout the organization. Prior to his appointment as CTO, Parag had risen to become Twitter’s first Distinguished Engineer for his work in revenue and consumer engineering, which included his role in re-accelerating audience growth in 2016 and 2017. He earned a doctoral degree in computer science from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Square Inc

Square Inc – An American Company providing Digital Payment Services since 2009.

Square Inc is a company booming in the realm of financial technology and services. The company was founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2009. Started off as a company to help small retailers and vendors accept credit cards but slowly ITV started expanding and broadened its customer base to big enterprises as well. The company’s headquarters is based in San Francisco, California and it is one of the largest companies in the financial technology sectors across the globe. So, let’s have a look at where it all began.

The Founding Story of Square Inc

Before co-founding Square Inc with Jim McKelvey, Jack Dorsey served as the CEO of Twitter. He stepped down from the position to establish Square Inc. The main idea behind founding this company was to make credit cards with tech that will be able to transmit data through the headphone jack of a smartphone.

To get the company up and running, both of them needed funding from investors. Since the co-founders hailed from a highly rich professional background, they were able to raise a total of $10 million in Series A funding. Some of the investors include Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter) and Marissa Mayer (former CEO of Yahoo!). After receiving this funding, Square Inc developed its first product which was a square-shaped credit card reader. So, after a year of establishment, Square Inc rolled out its first product and also launched an app for both iOS and Android.

Square Inc
Image Source: logos-download.com

The company eventually started booming as it witnessed transactions worth millions of dollars every week. So, the co-founders decided to conduct another round of funding in January 2011. The money raised in this round was $27.5 million and the net valuation of the company became $230 million. During this time, Visa bought a small stake in the company.

Growth of Square Inc

In the early months of 2011, the company processed around $3 million per day. Seeing the number of users increasing per day, Square Inc made a deal with Apple so that the devices of the company are sold at Apple Stores. This increased the visibility of the brand and attracted more investors. After the next funding round, the valuation of the company became $1 billion. So, a young brand became a billion-dollar company within a span of three years and that was just the early days.

Since Square focused mainly on retailers, businesses, and small vendors, it built a lot of apps over the years to enhance digital payment processing, creating online stores, etc. One of the best services provided by Square Inc is Square Capital which analyzes data from merchant’s sales and provides advance loans using Square’s credit card processor. With the services provided by Square Inc, more businesses were able to create an online presence. In 2012, the company hosted Series D funding and raised $200 million and after two years it conducted Series E making a total worth of Square Inc $6 billion.

Uncertain Times

The company was making good money but its partnership with Starbucks led to a huge monetary loss. The company also went through some turmoil in 2015 when it was planning to file an IPO. During this time, Jack Dorsey became the interim CEO of Twitter and he had to handle both companies at the same time. So, after Square Inc started trading as a public company, the share prices dropped at the beginning and for one year the journey was a bit rocky.

Though the company lost millions in the partnership with Starbucks and found it difficult to trade as a public company after a year it was all getting back on track. From 2017 the company started recovering from its failure and decided to go international by expanding its services in the UK market. Given that the shares of Square were falling in 2016, the shares grew to 150% in 2018. In time, the company has also made a few acquisitions like Weebly and most recently gained majority ownership in Tidal.

About the Founders

Jack Dorsey is mostly famous as he served as the CEO and co-founder of Twitter. He went to New York University but dropped out before graduating. He started working on the idea of Twitter while he was a student at NYU.

Square Inc
Image Source: images.mktw.net and grupobcc.com
Jim McKelvey and Jack Dorsey

Jim McKelvey is an American billionaire famous for co-founding Square Inc. He went to Washington University at St Louis and after graduating started working as a contractor for IBM.

Jack Dorsey – The Founder of Twitter

Today, every successful entrepreneur aims towards giving the world something which will make the lives of people easier. In order to achieve success, an entrepreneur must think of benefitting the people in any way possible. Therefore, with the help of technology, several apps are being launched which are bringing the world closer. One such entrepreneur is Jack Dorsey, who has made a tremendous contribution to bringing the world closer with his revolutionary ideas.

Early Life

Born on 19th November 1976 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Jack Dorsey was a computer lover from the early years of his life. His parents Tim and Marcia Dorsey continuously supported and encouraged his passion for computers. Tim worked as an engineer in a company manufacturing mass spectrometers, while Marcia was a housewife.

In his teenage years, Jack spent hours studying the early versions of IBM. His first ambitious idea was to build a live map of New York City, displaying small moving dots, which would represent ambulances, taxis, police vehicles, fire brigades, etc. After moving to a new place Jack would go on long late night walks in the city to get a visual idea for his map.

Jack Dorsey
Image Source: wikimedia.org

As a child, Jack faced a stuttering problem while speaking, so he used to keep quiet most of the time. But, taking control over this weakness was what made him a survivor and ready to face more difficult challenges and how to solve them. Therefore, he would sign up for various oratory competitions. After several failed attempts, he finally managed to speak normally.

Jack attended high school at Bishop DuBourg in St. Louis, Missouri. Then he further went to attend the University of Missouri of Science and Technology, but, soon transferred to New York University. He was an active member of computer club during his high school. Jack’s first computer programming experience was at the age of 14 when he wrote few programs for taxi dispatching and firefighting services. He made this programs using an open source platform and they are still used by some taxi companies even today.

Early Career

Jack initially applied for an internship at Mira Digital Publishing Company in the summer of 1991. And just within a few weeks, he was leading a team of programmers. This was quite a sight when a teenager was leading a team in their thirties. His second company was Dispatch Management Services Corp. Jack got a job at this company in an unusual way. He hacked the company’s website and contacted the manager explaining the loophole in their company’s software. He was immediately hired as a programmer and here’s where Jack was first introduced to an idea which would later become biggest social networking platform – Short Messaging Services (SMS). He also learned about a program through which a dispatcher could track the movements of couriers in real time.

This led him to move to Oakland and start his own company of dispatching taxis and emergency services, through the internet. However, the dot-com bubble left him jobless and for the next five years, he focused on freelancing.

Birth of Twitter

Later, with the idea of SMS, he was hired by ODEO, which specialized in Internet Startups. Here Jack met other talented programmers including Biz Stone. Jack discussed his idea of short messaging services with Stone, and they both went on to make the first prototype of Twitter. On March 21, 2006, Twitter took first entry into the microblogging service when Jack twitted the very first tweet, “just setting up my twttr”. The service was officially launched for the public in June 2006.

When ODEO ran into financial crises, it also caused a funding problem for Twitter. But, Fred Wilson soon showed interest in the company and offered Jack about a half-million dollars cheque. Later, Evan Williams and Noah Glass also came aboard Twitter. As per a recent survey, by SimilarWeb analytics tool, Twitter gets 2.2 billion visits per month.

Founder of Square

Jack did not stop at the success of Twitter but moved on to create some more exciting projects. His next successful venture was set up in 2010 called Square – a café POS system and mobile payment company. The unique feature of this product is its size. It is small square-sized hardware, which is inserted into the headphone jack. It has a magnetic reader to read credit/debit cards. Due to its small size and great potential Starbucks invested $25 million, on August 8th, 2012 in Square.

Jack Dorsey is counted as one of the most successful and genius people in the world. As of 2015, his net worth was calculated to be $2.3 billion. Today, Twitter is actively used by politicians, celebrities, and artists across the globe. And, Square is on the path to change the mobile payments industry.