Another pooch update. They way most people use Twitter is the pop in quickly to get updates from people and sources they know, and then move onto something else. That’s good for attracting eyes, but it is not good for keeping eyes.
Musk got cross-threaded with the New York Times, and retaliated by removing their gold, certified badge, which means now anyone can post to Twitter pretending to be the NYT.
That’s bad for the NYT, but the NYT is also the most visited news site in the United States. So it can’t be good for Twitter either.
Threads is not X. Threads is part of or planned to be part of Mastodon. The Fediverse. Because Meta is funding Threads it will be the most stable part of the Fediverse and the largest over time.
Musk has not fixed how ads are run. He can not fix it. X does not function well enough to be fixed up properly for ads. Twitter was only good for Brand recognition.
He is asking Christ to move over on the cross.
Musk is actually very emotional about his conquering things. The 60 Minutes report way back when shows a tearful Musk that was true to form.
But we need to remember he really is taking very few shots on goal and making them count.
Presumably most here have seen the news, but Musk himself now values Twitter, er X, at $19B, down more than 50% from the original purchase price. The number comes from the employee options now being granted, which indicate current value and strike price.
I’m pretty sure the “clear but difficult path” is non-existent. The vision includes not just peer-to-peer money transfers a la Venmo or PayPal, but (paraphrase) “encompassing a person’s entire financial life including investments, mortgages, consumer loans, credit, etc.” Not to mention messaging, video, telephonic, and more.
The idea that I would let someone as unstable and capricious as Musk anywhere near my financial life is beyond ludicrous.
Sounds a lot like WeChat, so we know it is possible. However, WeChat was created in China where Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc. are banned. That gave it a big leg up because it could provide those applications.
But I don’t see the need for a new app to do all those things, because I already have apps that do all those things.
And I would add that in China, WeChat users likely have more to fear from the Chinese government than from a vindictive WeChat executive.
With all the hacking/impersonating already going on with twitter these days, it seems like a recipe for disaster beyond the fact that it is run by unstable man-child.
Keep in mind that without this unstable man-child, America would currently be having a difficult time launching satellites and Ukraine would be fighting the war without internet. He seems to get a lot done.
My opinion is that if Musk runs Twitter into the ground he will have done a huge service for American democracy. Social media has done far more harm than good. It is to racists, whackos, and conspiracy nuts what crypto is to hucksters and criminals.
Musk behaves like he describes himself, someone on the Autism spectrum. I can live with that.
X employees said on Thursday that they had gotten calls from advertisers wondering why Mr. Musk was making comments seen as antisemitic and why their ads were showing up next to white nationalist and Nazii content, according to internal messages that were viewed by The New York Times.
I didn’t figure Musk himself would be making the Neonazi content, but I guess he’s determined to go out in a blaze of glory.
As we’ve discussed in other threads, Twitter stopped including headlines in links to other sites. Presumably to discourage people from leaving Twitter. That makes sense, but in my observation, people tend to use Twitter because of the links to other sites. You go to Twitter and see what people you follow are thinking and reading about a specific topic. That’s the value of Twitter. I believe anyway.
It turns out headlines have quietly returned. So Twitter’s value does seem to be more as an aggregator than destination.
That leaves us with the morality of the bible. Those you just described beat us to that as well. Meanwhile, I am not in a race to declare my morality. I do not buy into those who do.
Bloomberg provided a glimpse into Twitter’s finances. Twitter is attempting to move into the payment space, and so provided regulators in 11 states with financial documents. Twitter seems to be losing money at a good clip:
Financial details shared with regulators in the documents also highlight the company’s business struggles since Musk took over in late 2022. They show that X generated $1.48 billion in revenue in the first six months of 2023, down almost 40% from the same period in 2022, before Musk bought the company. It lost $456 million in the first quarter of 2023. (Bloomberg reported in December that X was on pace for about $3.4 billion in revenue for 2023.)
They certainly have a big enough network in place, but I can’t imagine giving any financial information to a company which welcomes fraudsters, imposters, and Nazis in while at the same time destroying 90% of their compliance and technical staff.
As discussed above Twitter had lost many advertisers. In order to get them back, Elon has decided to sue them.
This seems like a long shot, but I’m not an attorney and don’t know the arguments. However, if you are a potential advertiser, why would ever buy ads on Twitter, knowing you might get sued later?
He thinks there’s a conspiracy (big surprise) by an ad group to shut him out, because they have a common concern about the kind of content he is allowing on the platform. And in stating it out loud they are obviously in cahoots with each other to try to damage him personally.
It is so often the person holding the gun and shooting himself in the foot that complains that others are the cause of his problem, and here is another prime example. In my experience, threatening someone in order to get them to voluntarily give you their advertising dollars has never worked well.
Hard to imagine that Kraft and Budweiser and Dominos don’t want their ads floating in a literal cesspool of on line hatred. That smell you smell doesn’t translate well to the sensory consumer experience.
Judge Reed O’Conner is a TX judge who has often ruled in favor of Elon.
Elon brought his advertiser lawsuit to Reed’s capable court.
Shame and embarrassment ensue.
It turns out that Reed owns TSLA stock as revealed by an NPR FOIA.
Made me chuckle several times.
This judge exposed his reputation to ridicule, and perhaps his job… for between $15k to $50k. (I assume that’s current value).
And it appeared reed would be recusing himself.
Elon shoots. Elon scores…
{ - A federal judge in Texas has rejected Media Matters’ request to force Elon Musk’s X to list Tesla as a financially interested party to a case the social media company filed against the liberal media watchdog group, which could have forced the judge to recuse himself due to his ownership of Tesla stock. }
So, owning TSLA stock is not a conflict of interest.
