Everything app killed the blue bird, an obituary for Twitter

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Everything app killed the blue bird, an obituary for Twitter

26 July 2023

Oliver Darcy, writing for Reliable Sources, a newsletter produced by CNN:

Twitter, the text-based social media platform that played an outsized role on society by serving as a digital town square, was killed by its unhinged owner Elon Musk on Sunday. It was 17 years old.

A zombie Twitter, known only as X, reluctantly endures. A warped and disfigured platform, X marches on like a White Walker, an ugly shell of its former self under the command of a loathsome leader.

Twitter is to be transformed, apparently, into a WeChat like app, allowing users to do all manner of things, from messaging to making payments. But that can’t be what all Twitters members signed up for. It’s like paying to see Barbie, and instead being herded into a screening of Oppenheimer. Musk could’ve bought Twitter, left it alone, and used the user base to leverage his everything app.

Perhaps Musk took inspiration from Meta’s ham-fisted efforts to “transform” Instagram into a TikTok clone. A move all the more perplexing in the wake of Meta’s relatively successful launch of Threads recently, a Twitter-like clone. If Meta wanted a TikTok clone, why not create a stand-alone app, and leverage their Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc., members, to light a fire under it. In the same way they did with Threads. And leave Instagram alone.

But who’s to understand what goes through the minds of the mega-billionaire owners of these tech companies.

X marks the spot, new Twitter logo soon, following name change

24 July 2023

Twitter owner, Elon Musk, says the present blue bird logo of the micro-blogging service will be changed to an X styled emblem, and that an interim logo could be unveiled sometime today. The new branding follows the recent name change, from Twitter to X Corp last April.

The changes are part of a bigger plan that will see Twitter/X transform into something similar to WeChat, an instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app, that is popular in China.

Exciting times, no?

Threads revenue tipped to reach $8 billion by 2025

15 July 2023

Threads, Meta’s micro-blogging app, may only be a week old, and boast a relatively small membership of one-hundred million, but some analysts are already predicting, boldly perhaps, the Twitter clone may draw in revenues of eight-billion dollar per annum by 2025:

Evercore ISI analysts reportedly said they expect Threads to add $8 billion to Meta’s annual revenue by 2025. Nevertheless, while marketers and brands are already experimenting with the app, they really want to know when ad formats will be available.

This is the eight-billion dollar question. Part of Threads’ present appeal is the relative absence of advertising. I think most people appreciate ads of some sort will need to make an appearance at some point — this playground Meta has made for us has an overhead after all — but the way they are deployed will be critical.

Any misstep could drive users away, and potentially bring an end to Threads. As a comparison, Twitter, with a membership of some 368 million daily active users, made four and a half billion dollars in 2022, chiefly from advertising. Whether we get to see the 2023 numbers remains to be seen.

Via Matt Fleury.

Twitter claims Meta Threads is theft of their trade secrets

8 July 2023

Meta is possibly facing a lawsuit from Twitter, hours after the much hyped launch of Threads, its micro-blogging service, according to Semafor.

In a letter sent to Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter accuses Meta of poaching certain of its employees (presumably those who weren’t laid off), together with “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

But haven’t we been here before, and isn’t there an answer to this? Anyone who saw American film director David Fincher’s 2010 movie The Social Network, will know what I mean. After all, a guy who builds a nice chair doesn’t owe money to everyone who ever has built a chair.

Is that right, or is that right? Time will tell I expect.

Threads by Meta/Facebook has started rolling out

6 July 2023

Threads, the Meta/Facebook micro-blogging/discussion alternative to Twitter was ready to go when I came into the studio this morning. You can find me here.

Threads is pretty simple to set up, especially if you’re already on Instagram (IG), and there’s the option to import your IG profile data, if you don’t want to fill out the same information on your Threads page. You can also auto-follow everyone on your IG following list with a single click, or make individual selections.

From there, you’re pretty much ready to go. Instead of posting a tweet, as you do on Twitter, or a toot if on Mastodon, you post a thread every time you say something. It’s all very new, and early days, and I’m checking in on Threads as I do other things, but it looks like you’ll see a lot of threads from people you don’t directly follow, particularly influencers.

I’m interested to see what other Twitter-like features are, or will be, available, such as lists, and scheduling threads. Isn’t it fun though, something new, and perhaps not so encumbered with baggage, and general bad vibes. And another big one, fingers crossed Meta/Facebook don’t impose too much Meta/Facebook-ness upon us in Threads.

Meta’s Twitter clone, Threads, said to be launching this week

4 July 2023

The much talked about Meta/Facebook Twitter-like micro-blogging application, reportedly called Threads, will be launched later this week, according to Bloomberg.

With well over one billion Instagram users, and approaching three billion Facebook members, Meta’s Twitter clone has tremendous potential traction.

Arrivals offset departures as Twitter exodus seems to pause

18 February 2023

Elon Musk’s arrival at Twitter last October sparked a stampede for the doors, as members worried about where Musk might take the platform. But surprisingly, departures have been matched by arrivals, says Sarah Perez, writing for Techcrunch:

Worldwide mobile app installs are up by 3.7 million in January compared with September 2022. Notably, Twitter installs didn’t decline in November. Instead, it gained new downloads even as some of its users seemingly left for other apps. In other words, any Twitter exodus may have been offset by new Twitter arrivals. Active user data would tell a better story here, but Twitter is no longer a publicly traded company and it’s not clear that Musk is analyzing user data as Twitter had before, which would allow for a direct comparison. But his claims of a burst of November signups could be directionally true, as the month saw higher app installs than October.

There’s also the point that long term Twitter members, despite their disillusionment with the present direction of the platform, have a lot invested in the microblogging service.

Many have spent years, decades possibly, establishing a profile on Twitter, and wouldn’t be in any hurry to leave. Despite the uptake in alternatives, such as Mastodon, there’s still, I think, the hope among some Twitter members that things will eventually return to normal, or some semblance of normal.

#BookTwitter and other Twitter communities fear for future

4 February 2023

For years now book aficionados, publishers, and literary agents, have been convening on #BookTwitter, a community similar to Instagram’s #Bookstagram posse of book lovers.

Like many other Twitter groups though, #BookTwitter’s future hangs in the balance, subject to the fickle whims of the social networking service’s present regime, leaving members concerned they’ll wake up one day and find it gone, along with Twitter itself:

The recent chaos at Twitter has left many communities on the platform wondering — what happens if we wake up tomorrow and the lights are off for good? One such community is “Book Twitter,” made up of writers, editors, agents, booksellers, publishers, literary organizations, and everyone in between. Recently, notable authors like John Green and Sarah MacLean have joined other prominent voices in either deleting or indefinitely locking their accounts, leaving many fearful that a slow bleed of influential players will eventually lead to the community’s demise — if Twitter’s code doesn’t blow up first.

Not moving to Canada or Mastodon, I’ve been on Twitter too long

9 January 2023

Josh Nicholas, writing for The Guardian, about a recent decline in active members on social network Mastodon:

The number of active users on the Mastodon social network has dropped more than 30% since the peak and is continuing a slow decline, according to the latest data posted on its website. There were about 1.8 million active users in the first week of January, down from over 2.5 million in early December.

Aside from grumbles about Mastodon being difficult to use, I think a lot of people are wary of having to start over again somewhere else. If Twitter had ceased to exist, gone off-line, members who wished to remain active on a micro-blogging service would have no choice but to find a new platform, but that hasn’t (yet) been the case.

I joined Twitter in 2007, as did many of the people who follow me. Today some of those people have tens of thousands of followers, something that would’ve entailed considerable time and effort to achieve. The prospect of leaving that behind, and rebuilding their following on another service, would be daunting.

Despite Mastodon experiencing a growth surge in recent months, and making headlines in the process, membership peaked at about two and a half million accounts in December 2022. This compared to Twitter’s 368 million monthly active users at the same time. Some people moved on, but plenty stayed back.

Anyone then looking to start again would have found barely any of their Twitter followers on Mastodon, rendering a move questionable. So much for the Twitter members who threatened to depart, to “move to Canada” so to speak, after Elon Musk assumed ownership. In the same way some Americans, unhappy with the prospect of Donald Trump becoming U.S. President, declared they would migrate to Canada, in the event he won office. Ultimately few, if any, made the move.

While some Twitter users might have gone to Mastodon, or another micro-blogging service, or left social media behind all together, their numbers were limited by the looks of it. Staying on, rather than starting from scratch, turned out to be more appealing. Twitter had a way of retaining members, sitting — out of sight — up its sleeve, all along.

Should Elon Musk step down as Twitter head? VOTE NOW

19 December 2022

Twitter boss Musk is conducting another of his famous polls. This time he is asking Twitter members whether he should step down as head of the social media service. He says he will accept a YES outcome, should that happen. We’ll see. Meantime, go ahead and vote, though I hate to think what will happen to anyone who votes yes… they’ll probably be banned from Twitter for life.

The poll closes at about 10PM this evening AEST.

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