Twitter. Oh, Twitter.
Twitter is by far my favorite social network platform. I spend hours upon hours on that site daily to the point that the people around me know that when I'm glued looking at my phone, I'm probably on Twitter. I probably have an unhealthy amount of my time on that site and I'm OK with that. Other people might not be, but I have come to terms with it. I run multiple accounts, all for different avenues of life that I pursue, and just enjoy being on there.
Recently, one of my favorite people in technology, Elon Musk, has gone and purchased Twitter for an alarming $44B. Before he even said anything that he was going to do, I was excited. I love the things Elon is doing between Tesla & SpaceX. Neuralink freaks me out a bit, but I'll watch from afar. My dream car is a Tesla and I trust him with the path he is going on with those two avenues. I find him hilarious at times because I think he is so smart, but he is also able to be a troll online. Does he take things a bit too far sometimes? Yes, but for the most part, I find him pretty funny.
After all the drama that happened with Twitter and him buying it, then not buying it, then going to court, and then ultimately buying it again, I have heard mixed opinions on the matter. Some people were not a fan of it, and others were. I'm on the path that I'm going to give the man a chance. He's done great things with other companies and I don't think he is malicious. Now, he started with a massive layoff which to me honestly, is not great. I find it a little confusing that he was able to do this (unless it was already planned which there are some rumors that the layoff was planned before his purchase) without fully knowing the ins and outs of the company, but still, I'm going to give him a chance to see what he does.
A big thing that he wants to do is change the reliance on advertisements to make money in other ways. Twitter was losing money every day according to him so he wants to find a way to make Twitter able to sustain itself. They do have a subscription service called Twitter Blue that cost $4.99 and gave some further features to the subscribers. Some of the key features were the ability to edit Tweets, change your mobile app icon, and also get some new features that were being tested to name a few. Honestly, to me and how I use the application, the features weren't worth the $4.99. So he went down the path to make Twitter Blue more favorable for people to go out and subscribe to.
With this journey he went on, he also attempted to get rid of the bots, impersonators, and scammers that were on the platform (don't worry this will tie together with Twitter Blue). How would he do that you may ask? By adding that verification checkmark to everyone that pays for the new Twitter Blue tier which is $7.99. The Twitter verification status used to be held for notable public figures and celebrities. It was kind of status that you said that you had a following of some sort. With this new plan, now anyone can get the verification by subscribing to the service. I was curious why they couldn't put in some ID verification plan instead of just saying subscribe. The bots are still able to subscribe if they have a working credit card. We have already seen impersonator accounts pretend to be a brand and then Tweet something obscene (link below for an example).
This kind of thing is hit or miss. It was the kind of thing that I always aimed at getting with my professional account in creating a following. Now I just have it because I subscribed (yes, I did subscribe to Twitter Blue on one of my accounts). At first, I said I wasn't going to subscribe and I was still going to try to get it the normal path, but then Elon let us know that verified users will be pushed content will be pushed to the top and everyone else's tweets will be buried. It almost makes it mandatory if you intend to grow on Twitter which seems to just be the thing you need to do in Tech now. I'm not thrilled with the idea of this, but here I am paying the monthly fee.
At the end of the day, I'm staying hopeful that Twitter will be getting better. I'm nervous about the things that it will be doing in the future and I'm hoping that it works out in everyone's favor. It is nerve-wracking not knowing what will happen with the company in the future. Elon seems to be making changes on a whim over there with no real plan put in place. It is almost like he is throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. I'm hopeful it will get itself together and be back on the right path because honestly, I love Twitter.
What do you guys think? Have you moved over to a new platform?
Right now, I'm still on Twitter, but feel free to let me know what you think! - @SeanMilfort