Archive for July 4, 2023

Meta Looks Ready To “End” Twitter

Posted in Commentary with tags , on July 4, 2023 by itnerd

Elon Musk’s many, many, MANY, self inflicted gunshot wounds to the foot have tested the patience of Twitter users. A lot of them have bolted to Mastodon who crossed 13 million users over the weekend. Some have gone to Bluesky who had to stop sign ups temporarily over the weekend because of the influx of new users. But the biggest threat to Elon Musk may come from Meta. According to this report, Meta will launch Threads in two days:

We’ve known for quite a while that Meta has been building a Twitter competitor, but now we have a more solid idea of when it will become available. A listing for the app called Threads has popped up in the iOS App Store with an estimated release date of July 6th. In May, a report came out saying that the microblogging service was nearing completion and could be out as soon as the end of June. While an end-of-June launch didn’t quite happen, the app could be arriving at a time when Twitter users are more willing (and maybe even eager) to try an alternative.

And:

Meta describes Threads as “Instagram’s text-based conversation app.” Based on the screenshots posted in the listing, users can keep their Instagram handle and follow the same accounts they follow on the photo-sharing platform. That means users will have a pre-existing following and circles on the new app, giving it an edge over other Twitter rivals. Users will also be able to choose the privacy of their posts and make them visible to anyone, to the profiles they follow or only to the accounts they mention. They will be able to heart, send and share other people’s posts, as well.

This is really bad news for Elon Musk. Meta is the one company who has the resources, the name brand recognition, and the ability to as the kids say to “end” Twitter. If you combine that with the numerous other alternatives to Twitter which include the following:

  • Mastodon
  • Bluesky
  • WT.Social
  • Cohost

Then you have to believe that Twitter days are numbered. To be frank, Twitter’s days have been numbered for some time. But Meta’s entry into this space may be the final nail in the coffin for Twitter. And what could make it very interesting is that rumours suggest that Threads will federate with Mastodon. Which could give it a lot more exposure and make it a viable alternative for users and advertisers.

If you’re Elon Musk, you have to be freaking over this development.

1 Comment »

TweetDeck Rises From The Dead And Will Become A Twitter Blue App In 30 Days… WTF??

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 4, 2023 by itnerd

Yesterday, I noticed that TweetDeck which is a popular social media monitoring tool stopped working for me. Then later in the day, I noted that a new version of TweetDeck had launched for me, and it worked perfectly. I found that curious and now I have the facts behind all of this:

Twitter’s Tweetdeck has been a much loved feature for years, allowing users to customize the experience of reading the social media site with multiple columns. But Tweetdeck won’t be free for long. In fact, Twitter announced on Monday that Tweetdeck will only be available to subscribers of Twitter Blue starting 30 days from now.

“We have just launched a new, improved version of TweetDeck. All users can continue to access their saved searches & workflows via tweetdeck.twitter.com by selecting ‘Try the new TweetDeck’ in the bottom left menu,” Twitter Support tweeted on Monday.

But you have to scroll to the bottom of the tweet to get to the catch. Tweetdeck will become a subscription-only feature soon, something that was met with criticism on the platform almost immediately.

“In 30 days, users must be Verified to access TweetDeck,” Twitter Support tweeted.

It’s not a shock that users of TweetDeck are mad. Because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that forcing people to pay for something that used to be free is going to anger them. Or put in a way that Elon Musk would understand, pissed off people aren’t going to pay him $8 a month to use TweetDeck. This is another one of his ill advised, ill conceived, boneheaded, and just plain stupid moves that is killing Twitter bit by bit. You have to wonder at what point will Elon stop pointing the gun at his foot and pulling the trigger over and over again. Because these self inflicted gunshot wounds are going to be fatal to him and his reputation sooner or later.

2 Comments »

Tweets Aren’t Showing Up In Google Because Of Changes At Twitter

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 4, 2023 by itnerd

The train wreck next to a dumpster fire that is Twitter is getting worse and worse by the second. The latest gong show is this:

Google can’t display tweets and pages from Twitter in search results as effectively as it usually does because of changes at Twitter, according to a statement given to The Verge. “We’re aware that our ability to crawl Twitter.com has been limited, affecting our ability to display tweets and pages from the site in search results,” spokesperson Lara Levin said. “Websites have control over whether crawlers can access their content.”

Over the past few days, Twitter has made some major changes to the visibility of tweets on the site. On Friday, it started blocking unregistered users from being able to browse tweets, and on Saturday, it introduced “temporary” limits for the number of tweets people can read in a day. Given Levin’s statement, it appears the changes have had some effect on how Google crawls Twitter as well.

Now as the quote above says, this could be a result of Twitter limiting how many Tweets you can see. Which means that Google can’t crawl the site to get search results. Which also means that this could change when that limit on how many Tweets one can see is lifted as Elon Musk claims that this limit is temporary. Key word: Claims. Or it’s due to the fact that Elon doesn’t allow you to see Tweets unless you’re logged into Twitter. That too could change if this hurts Elon enough.

Now Google’s statement to The Verge was pretty clear. But that hasn’t stopped some from speculating that this is Google retaliating against Elon for not paying his Google Cloud bill. You can find out more about that here. But the thing is that I see no evidence that this is the case. Even though Google does have the power to “end” Twitter, I don’t see them going to the nuclear option just to make a point as that may create more issues for Google than it solves.

I will say this: Google drives traffic to Twitter. And any loss of traffic will make Twitter a less desirable destination for people. Not to mention advertisers. And seeing as Elon needs money to keep the lights on, he needs to do something about this ASAP. Given his track record to date, I’m not expecting him to pull this one out. But as always, I am free to be proven wrong. Though I suspect I won’t be.

Leave a comment »