Twitter and Musk

[Cuddles]

Actually I'm not of fan of Musk at all and have criticized him often, but his achievements are undeniable and his capacity to execute are unique. I was against him getting involved in Twitter because of the possible negative impact on Tesla.
Now he owns Twitter and there's no turning back.

I want to remain apolitical regarding his intent because I believe he is going to be apolitical, if that's still at all possible in the USA. He will clean house quickly and remove all those who think their jobs are more than their jobs. There's only one leader, it's Elon Musk. He'll take the aggressions and the accolades. I give him 3 years to succeed turning Twitter into a profitable business and a platform on which people will take the conversation far above the gutters that some want. Let 4Chan or 8Chan take that shit show over there.

Disagree completely. Musk's shown his politics, has seen the value of moving the mob, has backed his DeSantian horse and more than likely will engineer the platform to sway elections that favor his interests. There's the value in he platform, putting in power a party that cuts taxes and subsidizes industries/companies they favor

 

[Cuddles]

One key point - “The idea of forcing people to pay for blue checks gets Twitter’s value proposition totally backward,” he argued. “For Twitter to have value it needs to provide valid information from legitimate sources. If anyone can pay for the appearance of validity, the site loses all value.”

Horror master Stephen King slams Elon Musk’s plan to charge for Twitter verification: ‘$20 a month to keep my blue check? F*** that’
https://fortune.com/2022/10/31/step...sk-verification-subscription-plan-blue-check/

If Elon Musk hopes he can persuade Twitter’s users to pay extra for a coveted blue check mark, he may need to go back to the drawing board.

The initial results of a Twitter poll conducted by Jason Calacanis, a venture capitalist and podcaster angling to be CEO, suggest there is precious little appetite for the privilege of simply tweeting as a verified account. This could deal a considerable blow to Musk’s hopes.

With over 800,000 responses and counting, four out of five accounts surveyed said they were unwilling to fork over a minimum of $5 dollars per month. Users still have plenty of time to cast their vote, though, as the poll will close in just under a week.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1586923535095693313

The verification feature is intended to distinguish credible accounts from impostors adopting a similar name and avatar: These can vary from parody or fan accounts to scammers looking for victims on which to prey.

Supporters believe a monthly fee for this service may be a good fit for businesses and influencers looking to expand their reach, while others claim it is already a broken system with Twitter unevenly applying the verification policy.

Acclaimed horror author Stephen King was particularly damning about the prospect of paying for verification.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1587042605627490304

Political activist and Democratic Party supporter Max Berger, who himself tweets from a blue check account with 73,000 followers, blasted the idea and compared it to paying for Super Likes on the hookup app Tinder.

“The idea of forcing people to pay for blue checks gets Twitter’s value proposition totally backward,” he argued. “For Twitter to have value it needs to provide valid information from legitimate sources. If anyone can pay for the appearance of validity, the site loses all value.”

The CEO of Complexly media company, Hank Green, with 1.4 million followers, called the proposition “100% cringe.”

https://twitter.com/x/status/1586832569869357057

Signs of support
Notably, however, the other fifth polled did signal a willingness—in theory at least—to pay for verification.

A very small number, under 6%, voted they were even prepared to shell out $15 just to tweet from a blue check account.

Nevertheless, the platform boasts 238 million users worldwide, including nearly 42 million in the United States alone, so even a small number willing to subscribe would generate significant revenue.

Responding to the poll, Elon Musk simply wrote, “Interesting,” without elaborating further.

The company’s “chief twit” as he calls himself splashed out $44 billion as part of the deal, much of it from selling his Tesla stock, to acquire a social media platform almost exclusively funded by ad spending.

This is proving problematic, especially as companies tend to cut their marketing budget when economic conditions darken.

To generate a return on his hefty investment, Musk told his wealthy clique of coinvestors he wants more stable recurring revenue going forward. According to the New York Times, subscriptions should generate nearly $10 billion in revenue come 2028.

A pitch deck sent to third party financiers like Andreessen Horowitz back in May refer to a 2023 product called “X” that should boast 9 million users in its first year before growing to 104 million five years later.

More than Netflix or Xbox Game Pass
The social media platform, which posted a first-half net loss of $400 million excluding disposal effects, does currently offer a premium service called “Twitter Blue.”

Subscribers can better organize bookmarked tweets and remove a tweet before it is posted, rather than simply delete it afterward and try again. Nevertheless, it lacks the edit function so many have called for, and does not remove ads or promoted content from user feeds.

With so few killer features, it has enjoyed very limited success, and has thus far only been rolled out to the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

According to data from app market researcher Sensor Tower published in July, consumer spending captured through vendors like the App Store and Google Play amounted to just $3.7 million worldwide since Twitter Blue launched in June 2021.

By comparison Snapchat’s premium service garnered $6 million, it found, eclipsing Twitter Blue in the space of just three weeks after going live.

Despite the seemingly stunning failure, Twitter hiked the price from $3 to a hefty $5 per month for U.S. users effective the end of July.

A report from The Verge suggests this could soon soar to $20 a month, according to current plans. That would price it well over the cost of entertainment subscriptions such as a premium Netflix or ultimate Xbox Game Pass account.

Allegedly those who fail to sign up within 90 days will lose their verified account status.

“Apparently Elon Musk greatly overestimates how much I care about my blue check mark,” said Phil Williams, an investigative journalist and Pulitzer finalist working for Nashville’s NewsChannel 5, in response to the story.

Which really begs the question. Will fake Stephen King be able to purchase a "blue mark" if legitimate Stephen King refuses to do so? Now the fake account has the "legitimacy" of a renowned name because they paid for their speech?

 

[gwb-trading]

Let's discuss the existing Twitter Blue paid service. The primary reason people pay $4.99 per month is to go ad-free. The other capabilities such as being able to edit a tweet rather than deleting it & reposting don't add much value for users. The primary draw was ad-free articles.

Musk does not seem to understand this.

Twitter to deny Blue subscribers access to ad-free articles
Twitter Blue was launched in June last year as the platform’s first subscription service
https://www.financialexpress.com/in...rs-access-to-ad-free-articles-report/2763581/

Twitter Inc, which was acquired last week by billionaire Elon Musk, will no longer allow subscribers of its Blue service to access ad-free articles, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Twitter Blue was launched in June last year as the platform’s first subscription service that offered exclusive access to premium features, including an option to edit tweets.

The service allowed subscribers to read articles from some publishers without advertisements. The social media platform also made an edit button available to paid subscribers in the United States last month.

Twitter is planning more changes to its Blue subscription plan that costs $4.99 per month, including making user verification a part of the paid service, according to media reports.

Musk on Tuesday in a reply to author Stephen King asked if $8 was an amount he would pay for being a verified user, adding that charging a fee was the only way to “defeat the bots & trolls”. Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

Man, I have not seen GWB this fired up since Fauci's Wuhan Lab buddies unleashed covid on to the world!!!!

 

[Cuddles]

Disagree completely. Musk's shown his politics, has seen the value of moving the mob, has backed his DeSantian horse and more than likely will engineer the platform to sway elections that favor his interests. There's the value in he platform, putting in power a party that cuts taxes and subsidizes industries/companies they favor

 

[Tsing Tao]

Man, I have not seen GWB this fired up since Fauci's Wuhan Lab buddies unleashed covid on to the world!!!!

He's livid because now he can't say "Twitter rejected and banned your source, proving that it was misinformation!"

The dude relies on the narrative remaining intact, and its been disintegrating around him for the last 8 months.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Disagree completely. Musk's shown his politics, has seen the value of moving the mob, has backed his DeSantian horse and more than likely will engineer the platform to sway elections that favor his interests. There's the value in he platform, putting in power a party that cuts taxes and subsidizes industries/companies they favor

Cuddles was for Twitter being able to do whatever it wanted before he was against it.

lol, wtf does that even do? Just make the con bubble space safer for the snowflakes? Whatever happened to "walking away" and boycotting twitter altogether?

and their right as a private company

 

[UsualName]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1587430944448864258

Top advertisers on Twitter:

 

[Tsing Tao]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1587430944448864258

Top advertisers on Twitter:

View attachment 298566

Will be interesting to see what happens. What was their reasoning? Stop advertising suddenly because Musk owns it? Seems rather....political in nature.

At the end of the day, these companies will have the data to see how many interactions their adverts bring them, and whether they make the decision to cut those interactions because of some silly recommendation or whether it makes financial good sense...

 

[gwb-trading]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1587430944448864258

Top advertisers on Twitter:

View attachment 298566

So Musk believes he can monetize the platform by selling ads while also facilitating its transition to a fact free hellscape that no reputable agency would let their blue chip clients within 1,000 miles of.

Yeah... that's a plan that will work. (Hint: sarcasm)

Let's see how "free speech" is doing on Musk's Twitter. They even have a term for it now "Musked"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1587330691423178754