Migratory birds threaten Twitter.. Will the “blue bird” die in Musk’s hands? | technology

The Twitter platform is one of the largest platforms for social networks, because it was founded in 2006, and today it has reached more than 100 million active users, and more than 500 million tweets are posted on it daily, but recently Twitter began to suffer several confusions and resignations , This led to a drop below the 100 million user mark, with the loss of many of them due to the policies pursued by the platform’s new owner, billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.. development or destruction?

Musk took over Twitter on October 27, and since taking over the company, he’s started enforcing his own laws and imposing his own views. Musk wasted no time familiarizing himself with how officials run the platform when he took over, but he began his new era by firing several executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and head of legal affairs, trust and security Vijaya Jadea, at the same time..

This change in the management of one of the largest social media platforms – which has significant influence in several areas such as economics, politics and technology – has observers feeling the danger that the arrival of a big figure like Musk in a place the size of Twitter could bring, which clouds platform, announcing a mass exodus.

Migration of tweeters endangers the bluebird

Data from Insider Intelligence – which studies market research – showed that Twitter could lose more than 30 million users in the next two years, after Musk takes over.

The study expects Twitter to lose about 4% of its users in 2023 and 5% the following year, meaning more than 32 million users will leave the platform, according to Insider Intelligence, which has tracked the platform since 2008, and believes that users will leave the platform due to technical problems. The rise of hate speech and the spread of hate or unwanted content.

Twitter is expected to lose more users in the United States than in any other country, as numbers are expected to drop from 58.7 million in 2022 to 50.5 million by the end of 2024, due to Musk’s policy of is not liked by many, and the report states that most of the departures will be under the age of 25 and over the age of 45, because they are not loyal enough and are less willing to endure a humiliating experience, the report describes.

But there are also those who believe that the platform has a good base of loyal users who cannot leave, and Musk cannot force them to do so, as he did with his employees.

Twitter employees quit

Twitter began shedding employees after Musk recently fired dozens of employees who criticized or mocked him in his tweets. Musk then set a deadline for all employees to respond to his message, as he sent employees a link and a final warning, and any employee who disagreed with what was included in the letter would be tantamount to the end of their Twitter career, and will receive a bonus at the end of service in 3 months.

Twitter has about 2,900 employees left after Musk’s notice period, due to Musk’s unofficial layoff of about half of its 7,500-strong workforce after taking office.

Some believe that the impact of these resignations on the platform will only be temporary, as the platform and Musk are very much concerned with replacing the competencies that have been fired or discarded, but the question is where these competencies will go.

Your employees are your new competition

After Musk fired Alfonzo Fons Terrell and Davis Brown in a mass layoff last November, the two former employees are working on a social media platform called Spill, promoting it as an alternative to Twitter.

They say the app will serve “cultural pioneers” and be a haven for those fleeing Twitter’s new rules. The creators of the platform added that it aims to be “a real-time conversation platform that puts culture first.” The founders revealed that the platform will be launched early next year.

Terrell was Twitter’s global head of social and editorial, and Brown was Twitter’s product manager with a primary focus on machine learning.

The cake is no longer just for Musk

Many Twitter users and employees may blame Jack Dorsey for selling the platform to Musk, but it seems that Dorsey has discovered that the “bluebird” is on its way out.

Dorsey recently proposed that there should be a free and open social media protocol that is not owned by any company or group of companies. He added that this protocol allows users to build and select their own algorithms according to two factors, moderation and importance, and will not be subject to company or government control.

“Mistakes have been made in the past, and Twitter would be better off today if the company focused more on tools for the people who use the service, rather than tools for us,” Dorsey said.

He continued: “The problem today is that we have companies owning the protocol and disclosing the content, which makes one person – ultimately – responsible for the decision to publish or delete.”

Dorsey cited Bluesky, a non-profit organization started by Twitter, as well as Mastodon and Matrix as startups that could live up to his vision of what constitutes a free and open social media protocol.

He said he would give grants to promising projects, starting with $1 million for Signal, an encrypted messaging app.

This money, which will help these startups, is the deciding factor in the success or failure of Musk’s project, which is why Musk is aiming to build the “X” app, or as he knows it, “the app of everything.”

Musk’s gamble could make Twitter an all-or-nothing app.

The “app of everything” concept, often called the “super app” is very popular in Asia, and tech companies around the world have tried to replicate it.

This application offers users a range of services such as messaging, social networking, payments and e-commerce.

These giants are widely used in Asia because the mobile phone is the main form of Internet access for many people in the region, Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University, wrote last year.

China’s super app WeChat has more than a billion monthly users, according to the latest estimates, and is ubiquitous in China’s daily life. Through it, users can order a taxi, send money to friends and family or make payments in stores.

Adding more tools and services to Twitter could help Musk achieve the company’s growth goals. During a question-and-answer session with employees, he said he wants Twitter to grow from 237 million users to “at least a billion.”

Musk needs those numbers to extract at least $1.2 billion, the value of annual interest on a $13 billion loan Musk borrowed to finance part of the Twitter deal, which is more than Twitter’s profit for all of 2021 .

Twitter and Musk’s harsh winter

This winter is hard and harsh for the “blue bird”. The storms that started early are not abating, and the migration of users has not yet started. Even after shutting down the accounts of certain journalists and threats to the European Union and human rights associations, we have not seen Twitter because of this step. serious bleeding of tweeters, but that doesn’t mean Twitter users feel safe on the platform, and it doesn’t mean they aren’t trying other platforms, which, if it happens, will be the inevitable end of the big platform.

However, there are important questions to which the coming days and months could bring answers, namely:

• Has Musk – who is known for his economic intelligence – lost one of his most important jobs?
• Is it a strategic move in a big war?
• Will the coming days show the war that Musk sacrificed the Bluebird to win?