The era of “twitter.com” has come to an end. As of May 17, 2024, visiting any URL containing “twitter.com” will automatically redirect you to “x.com.” This move signals a significant step by Elon Musk in his quest to phase out the “Twitter” name entirely and rebrand the social media platform under the simpler “X” moniker.
The change has been met with mixed reactions. Some users see it as a logical progression in Musk’s vision for the platform, while others express a sense of nostalgia for the familiar “Twitter” brand. Regardless of personal preference, the update marks a turning point for a platform used by millions globally.
Photo by BM Amaro on Pexels
The transition appears seamless for users on PCs, with automatic redirects to “x.com” occurring upon visiting a “twitter.com” link. However, reports suggest some inconsistencies on mobile platforms and for users who haven’t logged in recently. These discrepancies will likely be ironed out in the coming days as the platform fully integrates the switch.
This rebranding isn’t the only recent change for X (formerly Twitter). The company has also been tight-lipped about the fate of its long-standing “Twitter OpenAI” research team, dedicated to mitigating potential risks associated with artificial intelligence. The lack of information has fueled speculation about the team’s future role within the rebranded platform.
While the social media landscape continues to evolve, one thing remains certain: “X” is here to stay. Whether users fully embrace the new name remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure – the iconic bluebird of “Twitter” has officially flown the coop.
X, formerly known as Twitter, has introduced a series of changes in the past few months. The social network has introduced a paid tier that includes a verified badge and even changes policies when it comes to disinformation. However, in a move that’s been stirring up quite a buzz, X (formerly Twitter) has introduced fresh subscription tiers, catering to diverse user preferences and needs. Let’s dive into the details.
New Premium+ Tier at USD$16/month & Basic Tier at USD$3/month
It looks like Elon Musk’s X is taking monetization very seriously. The social media is introducing two new paid tiers for users. The first is a Premium+ tier. This USD$16 (RM76.20) monthly subscription not only removes ads from your timeline but also grants you a blue checkmark, offering that coveted mark of authenticity.
we’re also launching a new Basic tier for $3/month (when signing up via Web) that gives you access to the most essential Premium features
Premium+ subscribers will also get an algorithmic boost, ensuring your tweets get more attention and replies. It’s essentially a premium experience, perfect for those who want a clutter-free and personalized journey through X.
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the Basic tier, priced at just $3 (RM14.29) per month. This tier may not include the coveted blue checkmark, but it offers a plethora of other benefits.
Source: X (Fromerly Twitter)Source: X (Fromerly Twitter)Source: X (Fromerly Twitter)
Basic subscribers can rejoice in features like tweet editing, longer posts, and the ability to download videos. Additionally, you’ll receive a “small reply boost,” helping you engage more effectively with your audience. Plus, you’ll have encrypted direct messaging for added security.
Both Premium+ and Basic tiers are accessible via the web, avoiding fees associated with app stores. This ensures a seamless experience for users looking to enhance their X journey.
On The Road to a Paid Social Media Platform & Super App
Elon Musk has grand ambitions for the platform. He wants to turn X into an “everything app,” directly challenging platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn. While the specifics of this transformation remain shrouded in mystery, X has been teasing new features like video streaming and job postings, hinting at the platform’s evolving nature.
Musk’s ambitions, however misguided they are, look to leverage Twitter’s social media user base to create an app for everything. There are plans to offer comprehensive communications and financial services, potentially replacing traditional bank accounts.
Monetization or Bot Prevention?
In a recent live-streamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Elon Musk disclosed a plan to charge a small fee to every X user. The main objective is to combat the proliferation of bots on the platform.
Musk emphasized that the cost of operating bots would become prohibitively high, making it challenging for individuals or organizations to sustain them. By requiring users to pay a fee with a unique payment method, X aims to eliminate fake accounts effectively.
While Musk didn’t specify the fee’s exact amount, he highlighted the necessity of this change to thwart the vast armies of bots. This strategic move ensures a cleaner and more authentic X experience for users.
As X transitions into a paid platform, the landscape of social media may undergo significant changes. While the exact implementation date remains uncertain, it’s evident that users may need to adjust to this new paradigm. X, with its 550 million users and 100 to 200 million daily posts, is poised for a transformation that may encourage users to explore alternatives.
Meta launched Threads back in July when the internet was rife with the potential death of Twitter. The social network launched in a very barebones state having the most essential features and literally launching initially only on Android. The social network seems to have lost some of the initial hype but is continuing to introduce more features.
With the launch of broadcast channels on Instagram, Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, has been keeping the community abreast of the developments happening at Instagram and on Threads. Since the launch, threads has seen the introduction of many new features the most recent features include the ability to send Threads on Instragram’s DM using share button, the ability to sort the accounts you follow and the ability to add custom alt-text to images.
This week, the app is getting another round of feature additions. This time the updates come in the form of updates to user profiles on Threads. Users will now have a new Reposts tab which shows followers the posts on Threads you have reposted and from whom. In addition, reposts can now be seen in the Following feed. The Following feed, which was introduced about three weeks ago, is a feed exclusively to view updates from profiles you follow on Threads. Similar to the Following feed on Instagram, the feed doesn’t include recommendations from Thread’s algorithm.
The bigger update comes from third party reports. It’s being reported that Meta is gearing up for the launch of the web version of Threads. This is perhaps one of the biggest features being requested by Threads users and the one most sorely lacked by the social network. If you go to Threads.net now, you’ll be greeted by a holding page asking you to download the app on iOS and Android.
However, if these reports are true, the web version is around the corner. In fact, over the weekend, Mosseri, himself, mentioned the web version of the social network. However, he mentioned that the web version is “a little bit too buggy right now…” but continued to tease the release.
According to The Wall Street Journal, people familiar with Meta’s plans indicate that the company plans to launch the web version of the social platform early this week. That information comes with a caveat, though. According to the same sources, these plans are not final and could change.
The web version would be one of the final features to make Threads a viable alternative for X (formerly known as Twitter) and its alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky. It could also be the one feature that will bring brands, publishers and more users to the platform.
Yes, I know, it’s been a long time coming. But, it’s time. Twitter is finally becoming X.
It seems like the writing has been on the wall for a while now with Elon Musk taking over the company last year. However, after what seems to be the most unusually tumultuous buyout ever, the day has finally come – the iconic blue bird logo is being retired for an “X”. The Twitter rebrand exercise was kicked into high gear three months ago with Elon Musk officially replacing the Twitter company with X Corp. [I know it weirdly sounds like LexCorp and we all know what happened with that company in Superman.]
The change has already taken effect with the x.com domain leading to twitter.com. The logo has also been changed to the “X” logo. This comes after Elon Musk tweeted, “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds”. Even the official Twitter account is now an X although its handle is still @Twitter.
So, What Happens Now?
Well, that’s just it, aside from some grandiose words from both Elon Musk and newly instated CEO, Linda Yaccarino, we don’t really know. While Elon Musk has had a long history with the brand, it’s not much to go on. He’s used “X” in many of his other undertakings like SpaceX and xAI. His first startup in 1999 was x.com.
In an internal memo from Yaccarino to Twitter staff published by CNBC, she refers to the rebranding as a second chance for the company once known as Twitter to make a big impression. In the same statement, she highlights that X will be moving at lightspeed with an inventor mindset – “constantly learning, testing out new approaches, changing to get it right and ultimately succeeding.”. This could mean that we’re about to go for a real roller coaster ride with X and what’s coming for the remnants of Twitter.
X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.
However, if anything, it seems like Elon Musk and Linda Yaccarino will be taking Twitter and turning it into a global version of WeChat – a one-stop app for everything or as companies like Grab and AirAsia like to put it a “super-app”. Elon envisions X as the “everything app” and we get a glimpse of the future in the internal memo from Yaccarino, she says that X will “continue to delight our entire community with new experiences in audio, video, messaging, payments, banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”
It seems like this is already underway in the U.S. with X Corp filing for the relevant regulatory approvals months ago. That said, it’s an end of an era with Twitter officially being wiped off the face of the living internet. After more than 15 years, one of the most iconic internet companies and platforms has been put down. That said, we don’t know what’s in store for X and X Corp as Elon has hinted at improvements and refinements in the near future.
Twitter, under the new management of Elon Musk, is a different one than the one we were introduced to more than a decade ago. In just a few months after Elon Musk took over the social media platform as CEO, the platform started charging people for the blue ticks that indicates verified accounts. In a recent stir, the platform restricted contents to just people who are registered on the platform. A little later, they introduced a rate limit, where non-paying users get to see only up to a certain number of tweets a day. Specifically, you get to see up to 600 tweets a day before a limit error comes up to stop you from scrolling some more. Now, Twitter results are disappearing from Google search results.
While it may seem to be a deliberate move from Twitter to limit access to the platform by unregistered users. The disappearance and lack of Twitter content is a direct result of Google simply not picking up tweets from the platform because of the access restriction from Twitter. The Google Search engine still picks up feeds from Twitter with their API, but it has reduced significantly as noted by Search Engine Land. According to their report, Google Search has dropped more than half of the indexed URLs from Twitter. That is not to say that you cannot see tweets from Twitter in a Google search though. You still can, but you can only see new tweets that are made public. There are no mentions currently indicating the age limit of a tweet showing up on the Google Search platform.
There are rumours that this is just a temporary thing. Speculations regarding the lack of Twitter results in Google Search is due to the large changes happening within Twitter and for its users. In 2015, Twitter and Google had a deal where Twitter gave access to the full stream of tweets on Twitter’s platform, known today as the “Firehose”. While that was done before the Elon Musk era of Twitter, there are no reasons to believe that the deal has changed in any way for now. Then again, Twitter and Google are keeping any information close their chests for now, so we may see a change in stance from both parties in the coming days.
The move to limit Twitter only to registered is nothing new in the social media space. If you want to see a post or story from Facebook, you must get registered with the platform. Even for Instagram, you are only able to see single posts from users before needing to sign up for the platform to have access to the library of content the platform holds. In this sense, Twitter is technically pretty much just following in the steps of other social media platforms. Still, we think that closing off access to Twitter might be more damaging than helpful to the platform, especially since Elon Musk is focusing on monetizing the platform. It limits the option to run ads that could even be visible from Google itself and reaching out entire populations that do not have Twitter accounts or have no intention to get on the platform just to entertain themselves with microblogs.
Nothing is confirmed at this point, but Elon Musk may just denounce the deal with Google at any time. While it does not sound like a major loss to Google, it is a small loss to content creators who are active on Twitter. It is a loss in exposure of the platform and users. It closes off the platform to be used as a public announcement platform too in this case. Currently, only time can tell whether or not this is going to be a permanent thing.
Being rich has a lot of perks. One of them, as the richest man on earth, Elon Musk shows, is simply acquiring companies. His most prominent acquisition so far, that just went through anyway, is Twitter at US$ 44 Billion (MYR 191.333 billion*).
Of course, while this is our first report on Elon Musk’s bid to acquiring Twitter, it is not something that has gone quiet. Elon Musk bought over some Twitter shares a few weeks back and has been bidding to acquire the platform entirely ever since. Why? We do not know.
A few weeks back, with his acquisition of Twitter shares, he also promised that Twitter will soon have an ‘edit post’ button. The ‘edit’ button is something Twitter sorely lacks since its inception. While we would appreciate an ‘edit’ function, we have sort of lived with it. An ‘edit’ button will be nice though.
The acquisition that just went through not too long ago today has more questions surrounding it than answers too. One thing that has already been known with the acquisition is that the current CEO, Parag Agrawal will be leaving the company, though there are no mentions of when that will happen. We also know that Elon Musk is big on “free speech within the bounds of the law”, which is still rather vague but could mean less regulations from Twitter’s end. Elon also says that he wants to make Twitter better with new features and open sourcing the algorithms within Twitter.
What does this mean for Twitter?
Nobody knows, really. When the deal went through, there were plenty of speculations on organisational restructuring. Employees at Twitter are still nervous about their jobs or even compensations if they suddenly become unemployed. So far, there are no mentions on a major restructuring in Twitter yet.
In terms of the Twitter platform itself, you could be seeing the return of multiple names that was banned by Twitter for political correctness and other reasons. We said ‘could’, not ‘will’, so even we are taking that with a pinch of salt for now. Still, in favour of Elon Musk’s “free speech” commitment, we are expecting looser regulations from Twitter and less intervention from the platform in plenty of topics, “fake news” included.
Of course, such high-profile acquisition will attract the attention of Wall Street. That led to a 5% spike of Twitter’s share prices before Wall Street had to stop the trade of Twitter’s stocks. Elon Musk is known to turn many things into gold, and we believe that Twitter’s stocks will continue to increase in value at least for the time being.
The current CEO of Twitter says that there are no planned changes at this time, at least before he leaves. He added though that he is unsure about changers in the future ones the deal closes later this year. The deal is expected to take another six months before Elon fully takes control of Twitter. At least for the next six months, there should not be much in terms of change within and on Twitter as a platform.
*Approximately based on exchange rate of US$ 1 = MYR 4.35 as of 26/04/2022 on xe.com
Clubhouse is arguably the largest buzz word in social media right now. The audio only social media app has been in the news thanks to technopreneurs like Elon Musk. That said, the platform has gained momentum due to its ability of bringing like-minded people together to speak and interact. The platform has become somewhat of a sanctuary for those looking for fun conversations, support and even escape – the three things that people are sorely lacking during the pandemic.
Thanks to the popularity of Clubhouse, we’ve seen a slew of other platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram come up with their own takes on the concept. The most recent was the launch of Instagram’s Live Rooms and Twitters Spaces. The latter launched earlier this month. Twitter’s Space rolled out to iOS and a limited number of Android users when it was initially discovered; many of whom were unable to host their own Spaces. However, it looks like more of us will be able to host Spaces and soon.
Source: Discord
If Twitter isn’t your groove, it looks like Discord has rolled out a new feature called Stage Channels which bring the same features to the forefront of the platform. The new Stage Channels allow users to have and sit in on live, moderated conversations. Unlike its normal channels, Stage Channels highlight the speakers while others join in the conversation as part of the audience. Audience members will have access to a raise hand button which allows them to indicate to the moderators that they wish to speak. Moderators will also be able to invite audience members to speak. Yep – that’s pretty much Clubhouse on Discord. However, the biggest difference between what Discord is doing is that the Stage Channels feature is available across all versions of their app now.
Spotify, on the other hand, isn’t reinventing the wheel. Instead, the company has acquired Betty Labs, the company behind the live sports audio app, Locker Room. The app is already available on iOS and will be making its way to Android in the near future. It will also serve a wider range of audiences with the topic focus expanding from only sports talk. The company sees the app as a natural complement to the Spotify app allowing creators to interact directly and in real-time with their audiences.
According to a statement from Gustav Söderström to The Verge, Chief R&D Officer at Spotify, the app will remain separate from the main Spotify app. However, it will be rebranded in the near future. The app will also allow all users to host their own session – not just approved users. With users already uploading recordings of their sessions on Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces to Anchor, Spotify’s podcast publishing tool. It looks like the app will streamline the process allowing users a more unified experience and feed the growing podcast ecosystem on Spotify.
Source: LinkedIn
While both Spotify, Twitter and Discord are looking at creating a platform for a wide, diverse range of content, LinkedIn is looking enhancing your professional profile. The company is introducing a “Creator” mode that allows you to get followers on your profile. The new profile will allow users to be followed in a similar way to the pages on Facebook. However, in addition to this, LinkedIn seems to be working on a similar Clubhouse-like approach to live audio content that it believes will be a good complement to a professional profile.
So, with more and more companies releasing their own versions of Clubhouse – where do you, our reader fall with the rise of live audio? Are you going to be taking part in the conversation? Which platform will you be using?
Twitter seems to be on a diversifying binge with the acquisition of podcasting platform, Breaker, earlier this year and now the acquisition of Dutch newsletter startup, Revue. The company looked to the acquisition of Breaker as a strategic move to help develop their Twitter Spaces feature. With their acquisition of Revue, they are looking to make the platform more interactive and profitable for content publishers.
The acquisition of Revue doesn’t change anything when it comes to the platform. It will continue to function as an independent service and app under Twitter. However, the company will be leveraging on the know-how and experience of the Revue team to develop and enhance their social media platform when it comes to discoverability and content. To this end, Twitter has decided to expand the team further, hiring for key roles such as engineering, design, data science, and others to produce more features. The move to acquire Revue comes as a boon to Twitter as it acquires crucial insights and talent when it comes to empowering publishers on the social platform.
With this move, the company looks to increase the exposure of the content publishers to a more wide-reaching network and global audience. In addition, the Revue acquisition will allow Twitter to enable a more interactive relationship between publishers and their audiences. As Twitter grows into a channel for publishers to build their audiences, the company is also looking to provide users with more creative and meaningful content.
