Woz -- I was a shy geek so I sought out small groups to hang out with.
- Newspapers brought us together as communities, but they're going away an being replaced by online communities.
- What drove me was the social benefits of using computers to learn and share and socialize. We had great dreams of socialisation, once people had their own computer and modem at home, to connect with. We didn't envision high speed broadband in every home.
- We came up with using a server to share software, and then created a network to share expensive printers. That's what drove the creation of the first networks.
- Then came bulletin board systems. The first really major dial up system was called "The Source." Jerry Green started it and it was the first system to have tens of thousands of people. Then came AOL. They spun out of Apple, and offered graphical pictures. They offered chat rooms.
- I taught 5th graders. Its more important to inspire students than to even teach them. Communicating with people far away was inspiring.
- AOL made predictions that text chatting was going to be the number one us of the internet, email #2.
- Kids didn't have an incentive to type. But online chat inspired to learn so they could talk and flirt online.
- The whole experience of sharing was a joyful experience for them.
- The internet came out. Jobs got a high speed line. I set one up and became a network administrator for a schoold district of 600. What a horrible job, when the network went down. But thats where the world was going, and I made it my duty to supply the internet to my local schools.
- There wasn't many websites that you could type something in and have something change. I wanted to write games. I started offering up puzzles, but it wasn't easy to do.
- There wasn't very much interaction. The internet started out with a more academic and government focused. It was Tim Berners Lee and Mark Anderson that created Mosaic. Netscape came along next with a whole world of pictures and colors and backgrounds.
- I went on a bicycle trip around Yellowstone and put together web pages of each day. My family and friends could read this and it was the early version of a blog.
- I played with Friendster and Classmates when they came out and people I used to be in school with me and found me. Orkut came next. Now I get 30 invitations a day to be a friend. I realised the more I said yes to, the more invitations I get. I don't have much time to participate in them because it takes all my time to just be saying yes/no.
- The human being should be more important than the technology. Programs need to work around them and be natural and the more you adapt the computer to be like a real person, the better.
Woz shows off his vacuum tube geek watch that he planned to wear for 2 weeks but kept on for the past 2 years.
Q&A
- Social networks are being set up for many different groups, but it takes a lot of work to have something that works really well. I like to meet young people and encourage them.
- Mobile social networks is almost an oxymoron. If you're mobile you're away. When I'm mobile I don't turn on the mobile internet. I like using a regular computer for internet.
- I had a lot of times where I've had time to spend chatting online, but now I'm busy with a number of businesses and have limited time.
- I tend to be a gadget guy. Some phones have struck me as being o good to use. But some may like the Samsung interface. I tend to get turned off by the smart phone interfaces. The buttons have meanings that you have to memorise. That's not good. A lot of time smart phone screens are cluttered. That's how iPhone standouts. Its more like working with a person. Its something you can fall in love with.
- Steve Jobs is hard on the engineers to work through the details.
- Think, what does the person really want to do? Eliminate steps. Whenever you can cut down buttons and do the same job in fewer steps, that's probably a win. I look for efficiency. Go to a couple of people who know nothing about your project, or young children.
- About Apple - I'm not so glad that we have a high market share. I'm glad we have GREAT products.
