Elon Musk’s X claims it’s now a ‘video-first platform’ as it tries to reverse an advertiser exodus that has cost it billions in value
Elon Musk's X, long known as a service for posting short text-based messages about anything and everything, claims it's "now a video-first platform."
The assertion, made by the company today in a blog post that was aimed at advertisers, follows an exodus of marketers from the platform including Disney, IBM, and Apple after Musk’s assertion that an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory was the “absolute truth.” That implosion plus other missteps have caused the value of the business to plummet from its $44 billion sales price last year by more than 70% according to Fidelity, one of X's investors.
As proof of its video transformation, X touted a new video feature that is much like TikTok’s full-screen infinite scroll, and that has over 100 million daily users—"more than half of whom are Gen Z, the fastest growing audience on X," the blog post claimed. It also mentioned letting users publish longer-form videos, crowing that "In December alone, people watched 130 years’ worth of videos 30 minutes or longer."
However, X's blog post was short on specifics. For example, its claims of a large Gen Z audience came without any metrics to back it up.
A source at X, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren't authorized to talk to the press, was skeptical about the blog post's assertion of a video-focused transformation. "I think it’s way too early to declare us a video-first platform," the source said.
Musk has been making a big bet on attracting creators to X to publish videos. The company's pitch is that it will share ad-revenue that their videos generate. In an impromptu livestream using an anonymous X account last week, Musk played the video game Diablo IV online for three hours and discussed plans to make X a hub for livestreaming.
“We’re just starting to add in video ads with a similar thing to YouTube where you can skip ahead after five seconds,” Musk said. “And we also want to reduce the amount of latency with the streaming.”
In its blog post on Tuesday, X said it has paid over 80,000 creators in less than a year. However, the size of those payments can vary wildly, as some users have complained. X also announced a series of video content partnerships on Tuesday with former CNN news host Don Lemmon, sports radio host Jim Rome, former congressperson Tulsi Gabbard.
In terms of advertising, X claimed in the blog post that it has made advertising "more relevant and impactful," resulting in a 22% increase in total ad engagements. Yet many users complain that many ads are from low-quality marketers pitching counterfeit luxury goods and fake Keto Drops endorsed by Shark Tank.
Looking ahead to 2024, X plans to focus on enhancing the user and advertising experience through artificial intelligence, launching peer-to-peer payments, and improving the relevance of posts that users see, the blog post explained.
"Get ready for an exciting journey into the future of X!" it concluded.
More X news:
Elon Musk’s new ‘user seconds’ metric is another curious chapter in X’s war on bots
What the heck is going on with headlines on X?
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
