Twitter was around communication and visualizing what was happening in the world in real-time. Square was allowing everyone to accept the form of payment people have in their pocket today, which is a credit card.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think Twitter is the future of communications and Square will be the payment network.
Square is turning informal, cash transactions, like you would do with a taco truck, into card swipes. Stripe is more for the Internet, it's focused on the kinds of transactions that weren't possible years ago. We think about how you would buy things from a mobile phone, crowd-funding, how should that work.
Twitter became a major place to find out what was breaking on the Internet. Facebook became a place to share links. Social media really grew up.
'What is Twitter?' has always been a tough question to answer.
I went from rotary phone to Twitter. And was appalled at the notion.
When people come to Twitter and they want to express something in the world, the technology fades away. It's them writing a simple message and them knowing that people are going to see it.
Social media is an information channel; it's like radio or TV... In Cisco, we made a lot of money on public protocol. I think the social media model replicates that protocol.
Twitter was like a poem. It was rich, real and spontaneous. It really fit my style. In a year and a half, I tweeted 60,000 tweets, over 100,000 words. I spent a minimum eight hours a day on it, sometimes 24 hours.
The idea of Twitter started with me working in dispatch since I was 15 years old, where taxi cabs or firetrucks would broadcast where they were and what they were doing.
Twitter is not a business. I know its founders would like to think it is. It is, for the most part, a diversion.