David Pierce

One of my favorite things to do on social media is to just imagine the people setting up the camera right before the video starts — because as soon as you remember they set up a camera, the whole viewing experience changes. This fun Ringer story about the rise of YouTube Face (trust me, you know the face) pulls back a lot of that artifice and dives into some of the strange workings of the internet’s biggest video platform.

The third season of Version History kicked off this weekend, and I can confidently tell you it’s the first time that research has required me to spend several hours on Geocities. Such was the toy world in 1998! Furby is a story of technology, of toys, and of human-gadget philosophy. It’s a really fun episode — subscribe wherever you get podcasts, or watch the full episode on the new Version History YouTube channel.

For the next six Sundays, we have stories about tech we talk to… and tech that talks back. We’re starting with Furby, which is truly one of the wildest episodes we’ve done yet. Here’s how to get all things Version History going forward:

We have new Macs, new iPhones, new iPads, new Studio Displays, and more to talk about, and for once Nilay and I are in the same place – so we’re going to hop on a stream and talk it all out live!