The Birth of Moment

As I was thinking, "I should make an SNS." Seo Dong-jun, who had been walking beside me, asked,

"...what?"

"...?"

"Hyung Dohyun?"

"Ah. Right. Sorry, I was lost in thought for a second."

When I said that, Seo Dong-jun laughed and asked again.

"Haha, yeah. We were supposed to study together, so do you want to go to the library with us?"

Studying at the library with friends.

That was one of the little romances of college life.

But I had something else I wanted to do first.

'Midterms start next week, so I can always do it then.'

"I'll stay home today. I'm tired, so I want to rest a bit while I work."

"That's a shame. Got it, hyung. But if you do come to the library, call me!"

"Sure."

I gave a light wave and drifted away from my classmates, heading back toward my studio apartment.

* * *

At the same time, in the JC Home Shopping waiting room in Sangam-dong, Seoul.

"Ugh, seriously... why is this jerk calling again?"

Kim In-ju, who had been getting her makeup done in front of a brightly lit vanity mirror, answered the phone irritably.

The name on the screen was Second Older Brother Kim Daewoo.

It was a call from the brother who, until recently, had been the owner of a small construction company called Daewoo Geoneop.

"Hello?"

[I-In-ju! Why aren't you answering your phone?!]

Kim In-ju hadn't picked up because she knew exactly why he was calling.

Money.

Obviously.

[In-ju! I'm, I'm desperate here... Just twenty million won. Lend me just twenty million won, okay? Huh?]

"Haa... "

Kim In-ju frowned.

The voice coming through the receiver was pitiful.

Just a few months ago, this man had been called Mr. President by people in the construction business, and now he was a debtor running from loan sharks.

"Oppa, I told you. Don't call me if you're going to talk about money. I don't have any either!"

[But you're on TV, and you're saying you don't have money... You make good money! I'll pay you back later, with interest! I just need to get through this once, that's all, just once!]

"Forget it. If it's that urgent, why don't you call your older brother?"

[My older brother? Hey, what money does he have? He lives in a half-basement!]

At Kim Daewoo's shout, Kim In-ju snorted.

"Didn't you see the news back then? His son, Kim Dohyun, got a perfect score on the CSAT and trashed us."

[Why are you bringing him up all of a sudden? What does that have to do with him doing well on the CSAT? Just lend me some money!]

"Ha... seriously."

Was he this stupid because he'd spent all his time doing manual labor? Or had his company gone under and taken his ability to think with it?

Kim In-ju kept her expression under control so she wouldn't ruin her makeup and said,

"Think about it. In this day and age, do you really think some kid can get a perfect CSAT score without money? They must have had money tucked away somewhere. They probably paid for private tutoring with it, or sent him to some expensive academy. Oppa, do you even know what a top instructor is? This is why people who do labor jobs don't understand the world and have no sense."

[...What? Maybe Kim Dohyun did study on his own! You saw their house too, didn't you!]

"Ugh... studying on his own? They must've hidden a ton of inheritance when their father died. I told you that at Dad's funeral, too!"

Even as Kim Daewoo's voice trembled with anger, Kim In-ju replied as if nothing mattered.

"Anyway, I don't know. I don't have money, so you figure it out yourself. If your company went under, can't you just go work for someone else?"

[No one else will take me!]

"Then you should've behaved better before now. What did you do wrong that the whole industry is talking about you? I'm hanging up. Don't call me again."

[W-wait! Hey, In-ju! Hey, Kim In-ju!!]

Click.

Kim In-ju ended the call without a shred of mercy and immediately added the number to her block list.

"Seriously, what a nuisance right before filming."

She looked at herself in the mirror and relaxed her expression.

She practiced lifting the corners of her mouth, rehearsing that bright, eye-smiling face.

The venomous look she'd worn while hurling insults at her own family only moments ago was nowhere to be seen.

'It's been a while since I got a broadcast slot for a major conglomerate affiliate... I need to focus. Tch.'

That was right. Today she had been assigned to host a JC Group product broadcast.

JC Group was one of the distribution companies under the vast Seongsam empire, led by Seongsam Electronics.

In the home shopping industry, that made them a dream client.

Of course, Kim In-ju wasn't the main host. There were two big-name leads, and she was just the sub host who chimed in beside them.

Still, she had a decent level of recognition.

Because of that, she didn't have to worry much about other people's opinions, yet she still earned far more than the average office worker.

'Still, all of this is money. And it's a chance to climb higher.'

If the broadcast went well and sales were strong... maybe they'd keep calling her back, even if only as a sub.

'Then someday, maybe I can be the main host too... hoho.'

Just as Kim In-ju was thinking that, a voice came from outside.

— Kim In-ju host! Stand by, please!

"Yes~!"

Kim In-ju stood up and answered in a sweet, pleasant voice.

When she stepped into the studio, the dazzling lights fell across her face.

And a little later—

"This product is great, isn't it?"

"Exactly~!"

Kim In-ju flashed a fake smile toward the camera.

She was the kind of woman who wouldn't even spare her own family that same fake warmth.

* * *

Beep beep.

With the sound of my studio apartment door closing behind me, I changed clothes the moment I got inside and sat down at my desk.

Before diving into SNS development, I laid out the idea in my head.

SNS.

If a search engine held the power to know what people wanted to see, then an SNS like Facebook held the power to decide what people would see.

It was an incredibly powerful, and frightening, kind of force.

If I owned an SNS like Facebook or Instagram, I could do a great many things.

On a small scale, I could promote my college club; on a larger one, I could turn my little sister Seohee's favorite celebrity into a huge star.

Go further, and I could lead trends around the world, even seize control of the advertising market and bend it to my will.

And there were even bigger things than that.

But more than those grand ambitions, there was something smaller, more personal—

'I can get revenge, too.'

A woman's face flashed through my mind.

Kim In-ju.

My aunt.

The woman who had looked down on my family when my grandfather died, and when my father died too—though in the future I changed that outcome—and then went on living shamelessly, fattened by comfort and privilege.

I still remembered, vividly, how at my father's funeral she had looked at my mother and Seohee and muttered, 「Look at how pretty their faces are. I told you that family had money!」

'She isn't exactly famous, but she is a home shopping host, so revenge through SNS is probably the best way.'

She'd be ruined in the industry.

Of course, revenge on Kim In-ju was only a tiny part of why I wanted to make an SNS.

It was more like accidentally crushing a bug under the excavator I was driving while building a skyscraper... something like that.

Anyway.

'Still, if I make an algorithm that only shows people what I want them to see on SNS, that's obviously going to fail.'

I needed to show people content based on their interests, and things relevant to the user ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠themselves.

'But even more important than that is... getting people onto my SNS in the first place.'

No matter how good my algorithm was, it would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be useless without users.

'How do I bring people to my SNS... in the end, that means advertising matters.'

After thinking for a moment, I decided to keep developing while I worked out the rest.

"Zero, let's start developing the SNS right away. Make the basic architecture similar to Instagram."

At this point in time, people were used to computer web-based SNS like Facebook.

They were accustomed to SNS with cluttered screens and lots of text.

But that approach wouldn't work on mobile.

The essence of the smartphone era was specialness within simplicity.

'Let's start with the UI.'

I designed the app's look in my head.

'Square, one-to-one proportions. Strip out every bit of useless space at the top and bottom... and minimize the text. The core of my SNS isn't text, it's photos and video. Put the text under the picture. Make it so you don't have to read it if you don't want to, but if you do want to, you can tap to see it separately.'

People wanted to show off on SNS.

In moments like that, rather than writing, 「I have ten billion won in my bank account!」 it was far more direct and provocative to show stacks of cash piled inside a personal safe.

Or photos of expensive champagne being poured, or a party on a yacht.

Explaining your ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠success in words was clumsy.

What mattered was showing it for real.

'That's the desire I want to capture.'

The layout I had imagined appeared on the screen in real time.

It was clean, stripped-down, and structured so that only the images caught the eye.

The basic design was good enough now...

Tap-tat-tat!

I started coding right away.

As always, Zero assisted with the side tasks while I worked.

* * *

How many hours had passed?

Long ago, the light outside the window had gone dark.

And now I was facing the most important task in my SNS.

'I need to make photo filters.'

There were many reasons Instagram had succeeded in the SNS wars, but the core of it was the filter.

You could just take an ordinary daily photo and upload it, and the filter would apply automatically, making everyday life look cool.

In other words, it made your ordinary life look like a magazine shoot.

'A bowl of ramen eaten in a cramped room, coffee from the neighborhood café, worn-out sneakers... whatever it is, once it's uploaded to my app, it has to look like a scene from a movie.'

The Clear Cam I was selling now was an app that made faces prettier.

It didn't have any function for beautifying everyday life.

'If you take a pretty face with Clear Cam... and upload it to the SNS I made, it becomes even more atmospheric.'

It would become a kind of double filter.

'The better my SNS does, the more Clear Cam sales might rise too.'

Still, what mattered most was making the filters for the SNS.

'Since this is still the beginning, I don't think adding too many filters is a good idea. If there are too many, people will spend too long deciding when they upload photos.'

The key to SNS was that it had to spread quickly.

So, for now, I was planning to make exactly five filters.

That way, users would feel like they had five choices, but still quickly upload their photos with one of them.

As I was thinking that, Zero spoke.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

Five photos appeared on the laptop screen.

But...

'...where did this photo come from?'

For some reason, it was a picture of me scoring a goal and cheering at freshman orientation.

In other words, a soccer match photo.

So even the student council president had to manage event photos for the department, I guess.

Anyway.

The three photos with filters applied definitely felt very different from the originals.

That so-called mood filter feeling.

Like they'd been taken by a professional photographer with a special camera.

I nodded in satisfaction.

'Let's make it easy to apply filters like this. One touch should be enough to turn an ordinary photo into something that looks professionally shot. And as for quality, make it appear identical to the original to the eye, without damage, while compressing the file size as much as possible. That'll make uploading and sharing faster and easier.'

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

The code Zero wrote filled the laptop monitor.

* * *

Watching Zero finish my SNS, I fell into two lines of thought.

One was the app's name.

'The app name... let's go with Moment, meaning a moment. The tagline will be, "Record your beautiful moments."

It sounds a little hip, and a little bit like a middle-school chuunibyou phase, which makes it perfect for an SNS.'

'After naming so many things lately, I feel like my naming sense has gotten pretty good.'

Or not.

'Then the next thing to think about is... how do I promote Moment?'

No matter how good an app was, if people didn't know it existed, it was pointless.

Of course, I did have a powerful promotional weapon called FreeChat.

'If I promote the new SNS through FreeChat messages, I can get exposure instantly.'

But I shook my head.

FreeChat was a messenger.

Messenger users came in to talk, not to look at photos.

The two apps had different purposes.

'Then maybe I should pay for ads on Facebook? Since it's the same kind of app?'

It seemed like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a decent idea, but I shook my head again.

Putting money into Facebook ads and saying, 「A better SNS than Facebook has come out! Try Moment!」 would be the same as admitting I was just Facebook's knockoff.

I needed to give off a hip, cool vibe... the kind of thing only the initiated knew about, the kind of thing that was "what's hot right now."

'It has to spread naturally. Like a virus.'

Rather than me paying for ads, I needed people to voluntarily brag about the photos they'd uploaded to Moment.

And naturally, it would be best if the place where they bragged was Facebook.

Since both were SNS platforms, after all.

'If that's the case... ah.'

Something good occurred to me.

'Zero. Tweak the "share" function for me.'

Let photos uploaded to the Moment app be posted to Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

Right now, posting photos on Facebook and Twitter was inconvenient.

The filter functions were practically nonexistent.

But if people used my app and their photos came out beautifully, and those photos could be uploaded to Facebook easily too...

'People will promote Moment on Facebook for me on their own. They'll want to show off their pretty photos.'

Then gradually, people would start using Moment instead of Facebook, and in the end they'd abandon Facebook and stay only in my app.

Thinking, "After all, the place where the pretty photos I actually want to see get uploaded faster isn't Facebook, it's Moment. My friends use it a lot too," they would naturally drift over.

'And one more thing. It'd be nice to bring celebrities with lots of fans on Facebook or Twitter over to Moment too... but I don't want to spend advertising money.'

There had to be a way to pull celebrities into my SNS without spending a single cent.

Especially if they were the kind of celebrities who liked communicating with fans through SNS, it would be even easier.

Anyway, that was my basic promotional strategy.

Promote my SNS, Moment, through the competitor Facebook.

And do it without spending one thin dime of my own money, by getting Facebook users to promote my app voluntarily instead.

"If you think about it, it's a pretty ruthless thing to do."

The promotional strategy I was about to use was, well... if I had to compare it to something, it was like going to someone else's pub and handing out my fried chicken for free as a side dish, telling people to try it.

That would make Facebook's operators very unhappy.

But Facebook couldn't do anything about it.

Just as Google had opened Android to me and ended up losing search share, Facebook would gradually end up the same way.

'Business is a jungle, after all.'

If you don't eat, you get eaten.

And if you don't want to be eaten, then Facebook just has to make a better SNS than mine.

Which, of course, they couldn't.

'Zero, final check is done, right?'

'Good. Then send it to Apple for review first.'

After saying that to Zero, I leaned back deeply in my chair.

Little by little, the platform empire I had envisioned was taking shape.

There was still so much more I wanted to make, and so much more I needed to build.

Still, Moment was going to be a very interesting project.

Even I was looking forward to it.

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