It’s a lesser-known fact within the startup ecosystem: Google played a pivotal role in creating early versions of popular Android apps like Twitter. This intriguing bit of history was unveiled in a recent podcast featuring Sara Beykpour, ex-Senior Director of Product Management at Twitter and now the co-founder of AI news startup Particle.
In an insightful conversation with Michael Mignano, a partner at Lightspeed, Beykpour delved into her tenure at Twitter. Having joined the platform in 2009 as a tools engineer, she was part of a modest team of around 75 employees. Her responsibilities soon expanded to mobile development, coinciding with the surge in popularity of third-party apps on platforms such as BlackBerry and iOS. Notably, Loren Brichter’s Tweetie, a well-regarded app, was acquired by Twitter to serve as the foundation of its inaugural iOS application.
Surprisingly, Twitter’s Android app had its origins at Google, according to Beykpour.
Reflecting on this, she shared, “The Android client for Twitter was essentially a demo app created by Google and handed over to us. This was a common practice at the time for major social apps, such as Foursquare and Twitter, resulting in a uniform appearance since Google developed all these applications initially.”
This revelation prompted Mignano to clarify, “So, Google built these apps to encourage companies to embrace Android?”
Beykpour affirmed, “Yes, precisely.”
Twitter then took over the development of the Google-made Android app, with Beykpour being the company’s second Android engineer.
While Google detailed its involvement in a 2010 blog post, much of the media coverage at the time overlooked Google’s contributions, rendering it a forgotten segment of internet history. The blog, authored by Virgil Dobjanschi, outlined how Google’s engineering team incorporated early Android best practices into the Twitter app. Beykpour recounted that Dobjanschi was her main point of contact for any queries.
Beyond her work on Twitter’s Android client, Beykpour also played key roles in other notable projects. One such example was her work on Vine, Twitter’s video app, which was launched just two weeks before Instagram released its competing video feature. This timing, she believed, significantly impacted Vine’s trajectory, ultimately contributing to its decline.
Recalling Vine’s decline, Beykpour stated, “The signs were evident from that day, even though the actual shutdown occurred years later.”
She had the unenviable task of overseeing Vine’s closure. Despite its popularity, Vine was not growing and was costly to maintain. Beykpour defended the decision, though she acknowledged that others might argue Vine was under-resourced or lacked leadership support.
Beykpour also shared an anecdote about her time working on Periscope, a live-streaming startup that Twitter acquired. During the acquisition phase, she rejoined Twitter under a pseudonym to maintain confidentiality.
Discussing Twitter’s challenges, Beykpour highlighted the difficulties in developing features for niche user groups such as journalists due to a lack of clear user definition and reliance on traditional OKRs and metrics.
Currently, as co-founder of Particle, Beykpour leverages her extensive experience at Twitter to shape the AI news app’s direction. Particle aims to revolutionize the way people consume news by offering diverse perspectives and supporting high-quality journalism. The startup is exploring innovative monetization strategies outside of traditional advertising, subscriptions, or micropayments and is actively engaging with potential publishing partners to devise fair compensation models for journalists.
