In 2006, Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, had an idea — he would create a SMS-based communications platform in which friends could keep tabs on each other by updating statuses. In the beginning, Twitter was an idea all-too-similar to texting.
The idea evolved, in large part due to brainstorming sessions with Dorsey’s co-founder, Evan Williams.
On March 21, 2006, Jack sent the first tweet, which read — “just setting up my twitter.”
LATEST DEAL BY MUSK
After months of waffling, lawsuits, verbal mudslinging and the near miss of a full blown trial, Elon Musk now owns Twitter.
Mr. Musk closed his $44 billion deal to buy the social media service, said three people with knowledge of the situation. He also began cleaning house, with at least four top Twitter executives — including the chief executive and chief financial officer — getting fired.
The closing of the deal, which followed months of drama and legal challenges as Mr. Musk changed his mind about buying the company, sets Twitter on an uncertain course. Mr. Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has said that he wants to make the social media platform a more freewheeling place for all types of commentary and that he would “reverse the permanent ban” of former President Donald J. Trump from the service.
Mr. Musk’s open approach to speech on Twitter could exacerbate long simmering issues of toxic content and misinformation, affecting political debates around the world. Early tests will come within days, when Brazil elects its president and American voters go to the polls on Nov. 8 for the midterm elections. Twitter said it would prohibit misleading claims about voting and the outcome of elections, but that was before Mr. Musk owned it.
ONGOING ACTIONS IN COMPANY NOW
Charging $8 for a checkmark
In an update for Apple iOS devices, Twitter announced that users can get the blue checkmark if they sign up for the $7.99 a month Twitter Blue service, “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians” on the platform.
Before Musk’s acquisition, a blue check mark next to an account’s name meant that Twitter verified that it belonged to the person or the organization claiming it. The social media company has not yet made it clear how it plans to verify the identity of users after charging them a fee and before giving them a blue check mark.
Apart from the blue checkmark, subscribing to the service will also give users “half the ads and much better ones,” according to Twitter. “Since you’re supporting Twitter in the battle against bots, we’re going to reward you with half the ads and make them twice as relevant,” said the company in the update notification.
According to the update, Twitter Blue with verification has been rolled out to users in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. When a user asked Musk when the service will be rolled out to India, he said it should be available in less than a month.
Long-form text and content monetization
As a growing number of advertisers are seemingly disillusioned with Musk’s takeover of the platform, the Tesla billionaire seems to have plans to allow users to write long-form content on the platform, and to also help them monetize their content.
As a growing number of advertisers are seemingly disillusioned with Musk’s takeover of the platform, the Tesla billionaire seems to have plans to allow users to write long-form content on the platform, and to also help them monetize their content.
But in June this year, before Musk’s takeover, Twitter had already announced “Twitter Notes,” a feature that will allow users to write long-form text on the platform. The feature has been tested in certain regions and allowed users to create long-form blogs or articles and publish them within a tweet. When a Twitter user asked Musk whether what he planned was something similar, he replied, “something like that.”
Musk, on the other hand, seemed to be interested in a monetization model similar to Google-owned video streaming giant YouTube. “We can do 42 min chunks at 1080 resolution now for new Blue, so you could break up a longer video. The 42 min limit should be fixed next month. How does YouTube monetization work & what could Twitter do better,” asked Musk to a user who suggested YouTube-like monetization.
Cost-cutting and financial pressure
According to Bloomberg, the layoffs are part of a much broader effort to cut costs at a company that Musk has admitted he overpaid for. NYT reports that he saddled the company with over $13 billion in debt to acquire it, meaning it has to pay $1 billion annually in interest alone. Meanwhile, the company had less than $1 billion in cash flow. Basically, it generated less money last year than what it now owes lenders annually.
The frenzy to monetize content and get more paying users can also be attributed to this financial pressure. Musk is also reportedly working on minimizing the company’s infrastructure costs. People familiar with the matter told NYT that Musk’s advisers have proposed saving between $1 million and $3 million in infrastructure costs a day.
FUTURE OF TWITTER
DONALD TRUMP AND OTHER SUSPENDED ACCOUNTS COULD BE ALLOWED BACK
Musk has said for months that his top priority would be to preserve free speech on Twitter and restore access to former President Donald Trump, who was permanently suspended last year after the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Other suspended users could also be reinstated, analysts say, including right-wing voices that were barred for spreading conspiracy theories or hateful rhetoric. Musk previously told Agrawal via text message that he wanted to reverse all permanent Twitter bans “except for spam accounts and those that explicitly advocate violence.”
That means Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose personal Twitter account was suspended this year for repeatedly sharing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, could be allowed back. It also means The Babylon Bee, a conservative satire site that lost Twitter access after it published a trans phobic humor piece, could return.
FEWER GUARDRAILS AGAINST MISINFORMATION AND EXTREMISM
Along with reversing the bans on several accounts, Musk could also undo some of Twitter’s policies designed to make the platform safer for vulnerable users—typically women, LGBTQ individuals and people of color—such as its ban on misgendering transgender people.
He has previously said that the platform would have more lenient content moderation policies under his leadership. “If in doubt, let the speech exist,” Musk said in an on-stage interview in April. “If it’s a gray area, I would say, let the tweet exist. But obviously in the case where there’s perhaps a lot of controversy, you would not necessarily want to promote that tweet.”
Still, Twitter’s algorithm has in the past been found to amplify extreme political rhetoric or conspiracy theories in harmful ways by suggesting new accounts and content that users might be interested in. Those concerns could become even more prominent if there are fewer guardrails against misinformation and extremism.
THE EDIT BUTTON COULD QUICKLY BECOME STANDARD
Musk has expressed interest in allowing users to edit their tweets, something many users had been requesting for years. Roughly 74% of his Twitter followers said they supported adding the edit feature, according to a poll he ran in March.
Among the cache of text messages released was one from Gayle King, co-host of CBS This Morning, who told Musk she supported the idea of an edit button.
Twitter began testing the edit button last month after originally pushing back on the notion, giving Twitter Blue members who pay for its subscription model in Canada, Australia and New Zealand early access.
Twitter said that the feature would come to U.S. subscribers soon, but Musk may expedite the process once in charge.
Currently, users with early access to the function can only edit their tweets up to five times—a way to prevent people from changing the original content of their tweets too often. But there are still concerns that the edit feature could be used with malicious intent to spread misinformation or harmful messages if users were to replace their popular tweets to messages with sinister sentiments.
MUSK COULD TRY TO REMOVE SPAM BOTS AND REVAMP TWITTER BLUE
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Musk is expected to take action on spam bots—or fake accounts—on the platform, which he cited as his main reason for backing out of the original deal. It’s unclear what he might have planned, but the idea of a blockchain-based future for Twitter, in which users have to pay a small fee to send messages, initially seemed appealing to Musk since bots wouldn’t be able to get past the paywall. He later said this idea wouldn’t work because “the bandwidth and latency requirements cannot be supported by a peer to peer network.”
If he did push through a plan to get rid of most bot accounts on Twitter, Musk himself would lose an estimated 13.5 million followers, according to a data analysis by Scottish digital skills academy CodeClan.
Musk has also been very critical of Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service that offers exclusive features like bookmark folders and ad-free articles for $4.99 a month
HE COULD CREATE A NEW ‘EVERYTHING APP’ CALLED ‘X’
Musk said this month that he wants to create a new app called “X” after buying Twitter, which could be an all-in-one super app modeled after China’s WeChat—often described as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Paypal rolled into one central portal.
It’s unclear what Musk is planning, but he has long expressed his desire for Twitter to emulate the success of WeChat by branching out to offer other features beyond tweets. Musk already has some experience with payments platforms, which could help with creating a super app with that function. He co-founded PayPal—which he had previously called X.com—one of the early online payment platforms that has grown to become globally popular.
MORE EMPLOYEES MIGHT LEAVE
On Wednesday, Musk visited Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters ahead of the deal closing, and reportedly told employees that he would not be firing 75% of the company’s staff as they feared. But he is still expected to make some cuts, according to Bloomberg News.
Musk’s very public criticism of Twitter and its leaders, combined with his backing out of the deal, has created a significant erosion of trust, says Robert McCann, an adjunct professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. “At Twitter, it’s hit employee morale significantly, spooked advertisers and I think the deeper issue is that it has created a sense of confusion,” he told TIME in July. Some employees may choose to leave once Musk takes over, and some have already headed for the exit, according to an Insider report. Morale at the company was low after Musk renewed his offer to buy the company earlier this month, according to a report from Platformer.
With Musk promising to oversee a number of technical and operational changes at Twitter, questions about his onerous schedule and leadership style could also impact what he’s able to accomplish. Running just one company is enough to overwhelm even the most skilled Fortune 500 CEOs, but Musk already oversees the day-to-day management of at least four organizations—Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company.
NEW LEADERSHIP WILL BE APPOINTED
New top leadership containing the people who are near musk they can be newly hired or maybe they could be anyone from the employees of existing companies of MUSK.
We can say that twitter as well as the users are going to see transformational phase of twitter in future.
