Mediastreet
Tag

Twitter

Browsing
In News

Medium launches a ‘premium’ Mastodon instance as a membership perk

No Comments

By Sarah Perez

Publishing platform Medium is opening up its debut Mastodon instance, me.dm, to its members, the company announced today.

Last month, Medium first teased its plans around the Fediverse — the group of interconnected servers powering a range of open source, decentralized applications, including the Twitter alternative Mastodon and others. It said it wanted to make access to me.dm a perk included with Medium membership, offering a place for authors and readers to discuss the content published on its platform.

The company explained at the time that this would make for an interesting local feed — a reference to how Mastodon users can view a dedicated feed of just the conversations happening on their own instance (server), in addition to those happening more broadly across federated servers (those servers their local server knows about and is connected to).

In addition, Medium said it would tackle some of the onboarding challenges involved with joining Mastodon by making it easier for newcomers to find both the people and topics that matched their interests as part of its onboarding flow.

That’s an area others have begun to tackle, as well, as they aim to capitalize on the potential of the decentralized web. Last week, for example, the magazine app Flipboard announced it would launch its own instance on flipboard.social to address similar concerns. The new Mozilla-backed Mastodon mobile app Mammoth additionally features an onboarding experience that aims to simplify sign-up by sharing suggestions of who to follow from across different categories.

But while there are some similarities with these other Fediverse plays, Medium is the first major tech company to offer users a “premium” Mastodon experience — meaning access to the instance isn’t free as it is elsewhere when signing up directly. Instead, interested users would have to purchase a Medium membership, which currently runs $5 USD per month or $50 per year with its annual plan.

The company believes the exclusivity and the community it will curate on its instance will have immediate value. Already, it’s quietly onboarded 5,000 people from its waitlist onto the instance and is forecasting a community in the “six figures” in size at some point later this year.

Image Credits: Medium

“We want Medium to be the best place to read and write on the internet,” Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine tells TechCrunch. “We want to do it under a single subscription — I think people are tired of having dozens of subscriptions. And I think we’ve also found that ad-driven models have their own kind of corrupting influence,” he continues. “I think that’s why a lot of social media ends up toxic — because people are focused on engagement, rather than substance. So, in order to have the best place to read and write, you have to build the whole thing around an economic model for substance. For us, that means a subscription,” Stubblebine adds.

Plus, the exec points out, the instance will be among those run by an experienced tech company. That means it will run the instance on its own infrastructure and will have its own Trust & Safety team managing moderation. (Today, there’s one person dedicated to the task, but it could scale in time.)

Stubblebine notes, too, that instance’s domain name — me.dm — could have a draw.

“You have to share the domain along with your username in the Fediverse. To have a short domain is valuable,” he says.

Image Credits: Medium

Betting on a federated future

Coincidentally, Medium is announcing its Fediverse instance’s opening on the same day that Twitter was facing yet another partial outage.

However, the move also comes at a time when there seems to be a broader shift in Mastodon’s direction — and not just because Twitter has become unreliable.

Under Elon Musk’s ownership, there are questions about Twitter’s future — the company has lost advertisers and is in debt to creditors. But there are questions about the future of centralized social media, as well.

That’s further highlighted by the fact that Medium itself was created by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. (Williams exited Medium as CEO last year, but remains chairman of the board.) Another Twitter and Medium co-founder, Biz Stone, also sits on Medium’s board.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, meanwhile, is backing Bluesky, another decentralized social concept but one that uses a different protocol than Mastodon. Its future, given its reliance on Twitter’s funding, seems questionable, though.

Stubblebine addresses the oddity of having so many Twitter founders now involved with companies building alternatives but says Medium’s impact on Twitter’s fate is not a huge consideration.

“We didn’t go into this year, thinking that we wanted to compete with Twitter or even that it was possible,” Stubblebine says. “But it seems obvious to me that there’s an exodus from Twitter — and enough of an exodus to create an alternative. We’re not particularly worried about whether or not Twitter lives or dies. We see it more as there’s going to be a new thing and maybe it lives alongside Twitter or maybe it completely replaces it. But regardless, it’s going to be important. And, regardless, that new thing is Mastodon,” he adds.

Medium plans to improve its Mastodon experience as it grows, hoping to provide a place for writers to find new readers for their stories and enable conversations, then roll out more features in time.

It’s not the first company to try to relocate some of the discussions that used to take place on Twitter to its own external community in the wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition. In addition to Flipboard and its own Mastodon instance, Substack late last year targeted Twitter with its launch of an in-app discussions feature, too.

Meanwhile, Tumblr owner Matt Mullenweg confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing the ActivityPub protocol that powers Mastodon and other Fediverse-connected apps, in addition to others, like Bluesky and Nostr.

Medium itself, by comparison, isn’t integrating with ActivityPub — it doesn’t think syndication of blogs to the Fediverse is the future; its focus instead is on proving a place for the authors to build a community.

Stubblebine also says he’s not worried that offering a premium instance will corrupt the potential of what’s, so far, been a free and open source social web.

However, he does admit there has been some pushback from the wider community about Medium going the premium route.

“Most of the pushback is based on a fear of — sometimes it’s expressed as a fear of capitalism, but, when you dig into it, it’s always a fear of monopoly. This is one of the things that I think is exciting about the Fediverse — there’s really no hope for anyone to monopolize it. So it just leads to healthier business ideas,” he explains. “This is just a business idea that will be one of many on the Fediverse…I think it’s new, so it will probably be a little bit alarming. But in practice, there’s just no way for it to pan out that way,” Stubblebine says.

“I think there’s this unbundling of social media going on right now,” he continues. “And what that gives us is the opportunity to be more opinionated. For me, that’s exciting — I don’t want to be a town square for the entire world. I want to be the town square for people that love reading and writing — and a certain type of reading and writing — thoughtful reading and writing,” he concludes.

Feature Image Credits: TechCrunch

By Sarah Perez

Sourced from TechCrunch

Read More
By
In News

How Meta’s New Project P92 Could Deliver the Killing Blow to Twitter

No Comments

By Charlie Sorrel

And why the fediverse should be on alert

Meta’s new text-based social network might obliterate the remains of Twitter and also take aim at the fediverse.

The decentralized social media network, code-named P92, could be compatible with ActivityPub, which is what services like Mastodon are built on. Users will be able to log in using their existing Instagram credentials, which means that it will be trivially easy to join in with Mastodon instances around the world. It’s a boss move from Meta, but it could be as dangerous for decentralized social media as it is for Twitter.

“The one feature that Facebook lacks is the ability to give its users autonomy. Social media apps like Mastodon do not have a parent company operating them. It works on independent servers, and the users have the liberty to set their own code of conduct,” marketing expert Ryan Faber told Lifewire via email.

P92 Skirts the Fediverse

Twitter is on its way out. Since the Musk takeover, the trolls and bad actors who always strove to ruin Twitter for the rest of us have finally taken over. Lots of folks have moved to Mastodon, a decentralized collection of many federated servers, any of which you can join. In its simplest form, it’s kind of like email in that you pick your email provider, but you can email anyone else on any other email service.

This is fundamentally different from services like Twitter and Facebook. These are monolithic structures where everything happens inside a walled garden. The advantage of this approach is that you can easily sign up without having to vet and choose a server “instance.” The disadvantage is that anyone with enough money can buy the whole thing, or a single company can mine terrifying amounts of personal information from billions of users worldwide.

At the same time, Meta is under ever-increasing government scrutiny for its practices. By adopting the federated model, it might avoid the regulation it fears. If P92, or whatever it ends up being called, is just another ActivityPub-compatible service, or even just an Instagram-branded Mastodon server, the argument for breaking it up is weakened.

It sounds amazing, like a real win for open, decentralized social media and micro-publishing, comprised of a collection of servers and standards known together as the fediverse. And for Facebook and Instagram users, it removes the biggest barriers to entering that fediverse. Instead of trying to understand the whole federated thing, you just—presumably—join up from Instagram or whatever new app Meta comes up with. But this is also the biggest danger for the existing fediverse.

Meta’s Decentralized Social Media

In the 1990s, Microsoft used a strategy called “embrace, extend, and extinguish” (or “exterminate”). It was how it took over the fledgling browser market, for example. In the case of Meta and the fediverse, it would work like this.

Meta would embrace, say, Mastodon and instantly become the world’s biggest Mastodon server. It may then add features, and it would definitely make sure that anyone using its own instance would be just as heavily surveilled as they are using Meta’s other products.

Then, if all goes to plan, Meta could use this dominance to squeeze out the rest of the fediverse. It would become a de facto standard, and any independent Mastodon servers unable or not willing to implement Meta’s proprietary features would be shut out.

A group of teens using their smartphones in the park.
Maskot / Getty Images

“Facebook is not coming to Fedi because they want to administer a good, responsible instance that regards other well-run instances as peers and equals and has policies that aim to respect the autonomy and values of its users and other instance’s users right?” the Research Fairy, the creator and administrator of the scholar.social Mastodon instance, said on Mastodon.

The Best Defense

But it might not be so easy. While an easy sign-up will probably be enough to get the remaining Twitter users to jump to Mastodon via Facebook, the fediverse has some tricks up its sleeves. First, a Mastodon instance can block any other instance. This can be used to cut off servers that go bad or are full of trolls, but it could also be used to block Meta’s P92 network. And right now, I’d wager that many Mastodon users are anti-Meta (or anti-Facebook), and would prefer a server that blocks it.

Even an extensively-blocked Meta-owned Mastodon instance could be enough to finish off Twitter. And you never know, it might even end up introducing more people to Mastodon and all the other decentralized social media and federated goodies beyond.

Feature Image Credit: Urupong / Getty Images

By Charlie Sorrel

Fact checked by Jerri Ledford

Sourced from Lifewire

Read More
By
In News

Should you pay for Meta’s and Twitter’s verified identity subscriptions? A social media researcher explains how the choice you face affects everyone else

No Comments

By

Social media services have generally been free of charge for users, but now, with ad revenues slowing down, social media companies are looking for new revenue streams beyond targeted ads. Now, Twitter is charging for its blue check verification, and Meta and Twitter both charge for identity protection.

Users benefit from “free” services such as social media platforms. According to one study, in the U.S., Facebook users say they would have to be paid in the range of $40 to $50 to leave the social networking service for one month. If you value Facebook highly enough that you’d need to get paid to take a break, why not pay for these new services if you can afford them?

Meta plans to offer paid customer support and account monitoring on Facebook and Instagram to guard against impersonators for US$11.99 a month on the web and $14.99 a month on iOS devices. Twitter’s proposed changes make two-factor authentication via text messaging a premium feature for paid users. Twitter Blue costs $8 a month on Android devices and $11 a month on iOS devices.

As a researcher who studies social media and artificial intelligence, I see three problems with the rollout of these features.

The collective action problem

Information goods, such as those provided by social media platforms, are characterized by the problem of collective action, and information security is no exception. Collective action problems, which economists describe as network externalities, result when the actions of one participant in a market affect other participants’ outcomes.

Some people might pay Facebook for improved security, but overall, collective well-being depends on having a very large group of users investing in better security for all. Picture a medieval city under siege from an invader where each family would be responsible for a stretch of the wall. Collectively, the community is only as strong as the weakest link. Will Twitter and Meta still deliver the promised and paid-for results if not enough users sign up for these services?

a screenshot with large and small text and a white checkmark inside a 12-point star
Meta is beginning to roll out a paid identity protection service for Facebook and Instagram users. William West/AFP via Getty Images

While large platforms such as Facebook and Twitter could benefit from lock in, meaning having users who are dependent on or at least heavily invested in them, it’s not clear how many users will pay for these features. This is an area where the platforms’ profit motive is in conflict with the overall goal of the platform, which is to have a large enough community that people will continue using the platform because all of their social or business connections are there.

Economics of information security

Charging for identity protection raises the question of how much each person values privacy or security online. Markets for privacy have posed a similar conundrum. For digital products in particular, consumers are not fully informed about how their data is collected, for what purposes and with what consequences.

Scammers can find many ways to breach security and exploit vulnerabilities in large platforms such as Facebook. But valuing security or privacy is complicated because social media users do not know exactly how much Meta or Twitter invests in keeping everyone safe. When users of digital platforms do not understand how platforms safeguard their information, the resulting lack of trust could limit the number of people willing to pay for features such as security and identity verification.

Social media users in particular face imperfect or asymmetric information about their data, so they do not know how to correctly value features such as security. In the standard economic logic, markets assign prices based on buyers’ willingness to pay and sellers’ lowest acceptable bids, or reservation prices. However, digital platforms such as Meta benefit from individuals’ data by virtue of their size – they have such a large amount of personal data. There is no market for individual data rights, even though there have been a few policy proposals such as California governor Gavin Newsom’s call for a data dividend.

Some cybersecurity experts have already pointed out the downsides to monetizing security features. In particular, in giving a very rushed timeline, one month from announcement to implementation, to pay for a more secure option, there is a real risk that many users will turn off two-factor authentication altogether. Further, security, user authentication and identity verification are issues that concern everyone, not just content creators or those who can afford to pay.

In the first three months of 2022 alone, nearly one-fifth of teens and adults in the U.S. reported their social media accounts getting hacked. The same survey found that 24% of consumers reported being overwhelmed by devices and subscriptions, indicating significant fatigue and cognitive overload in having to manage their virtual experiences.

It is also the case that social media platforms are not really free. The old adage is if you are not paying, then you are the product. Digital platforms such as Meta and Twitter monetize the enormous tracts of data they have about users through a complex online advertising-driven ecosystem. The system makes use of very granular individual user data and predictive analytics to help companies microtarget online ads and track and compare advertising views with outcomes. There are hidden costs associated with people’s loss of privacy and control over their personal information, including loss of trust and vulnerability to identity theft.

Social media and online harms

The other problem is how these moves to monetize security options increase online harms for vulnerable users without identity protection provisions. Not everyone can afford to pay Meta or Twitter to keep their personal information safe. Social bots have become increasingly more sophisticated. Scams increased by almost 288% from 2021 to 2022, according to one report. Scammers and phishers have found it easy enough to gain access to people’s personal information and impersonate others.

For those who are scammed, the process of account recovery is frustrating and time-consuming. Such moves might hurt the most vulnerable, such as those who need Meta to find access to job information, or the elderly and infirm who use social media to learn about what is happening in their communities. Communities that have invested resources in building a shared online space using platforms such as Twitter and Facebook may be harmed by monetization efforts.

People are tired of having to navigate numerous subscriptions and having security and privacy concerns that persist. At the same time, it’s an open question whether enough users will pay for these services to boost collective security. Ultimately, the service a social media platform offers is the opportunity to connect with others. Will users pay for the ability to maintain social connections the way they pay for content, such as entertainment or news? Social media giants may have a difficult path ahead.

Feature Image Credit: NurPhoto via Getty Images

By 

Sourced from THE CONVERSATION

 

Read More
By
In News

Twitter Engineer Reveals Just How Deep Elon Musk’s Desperation Goes

No Comments

By 

Mass layoffs are the source of much of the chaos at the company, according to both current and former employees.

Current and former Twitter employees have said the company has suffered an inability to protect users from trolling, disinformation and child exploitation, a BBC story asserts.

The company is also said to have been experiencing chaos as a result of staffing issues since Tesla  (TSLA) – Get Free Report owner Elon Musk bought it in October 2022.

Twitter’s former head of content design, who worked on the microblogging site’s features to protect users from hate speech, said her team was making progress.

“It was not at all perfect. But we were trying, and we were making things better all the time,” Lisa Jennings Young told the BBC.

One of the features implemented by Young’s team was the “harmful reply nudge.” When artificial intelligence detected certain trigger words in a user’s tweet, it would alert the user before they posted it.

“Overall 60% of users deleted or edited their reply when given a chance through the nudge,” Young told the BBC. “But what was more interesting, is that after we nudged people once, they composed 11% fewer harmful replies in the future.”

When Musk took over the company, Young’s whole team was laid off. She chose to leave the company in November 2022.

Young said she does not know what’s happening with the features she worked on.

“There’s no one there to work on that at this time,” she said.

An engineer at Twitter, who was granted anonymity by the BBC because he’s still working there, described conditions at the company.

“For someone on the inside, it’s like a building where all the pieces are on fire,” he said.

“When you look at it from the outside the façade looks fine, but I can see that nothing is working, he continued. “All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything.”

He said not just engineers, but cleaning and catering staff, were among the employees that were let go since Musk took over.

Musk even tried selling plants from the office to employees, he also said.

He described the mass layoffs since Musk bought the company as the source of the chaos.

“Twitter has around 1,300 employees today, per CNBC, from 7,500 in November,” tweeted @unusualwhales on Jan. 20.

“The note is incorrect,” countered Musk in a tweet of his own. “There are ~2300 active, working employees at Twitter. There are still hundreds of employees working on trust & safety, along with several thousand contractors.”

The anonymous employee offered his view.

“A totally new person, without the expertise, is doing what used to be done by more than 20 people,” he said. “That leaves room for much more risk, many more possibilities of things that can go wrong.”

“There are so many things broken and there’s nobody taking care of it, that you see this inconsistent behavior,” he said.

By 

Sourced from The Street

Read More
By
In News

Facebook Is Building a Twitter Rival. Here’s What Marketers Need to Know

No Comments
By Dom Nicastro

Facebook’s mulling a decentralized platform that rivals Twitter and Mastodon, but can it be a marketing goldmine?

The Gist

  • Step aside, Twitter and Mastodon? Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is planning to build a standalone text-based app that integrates with ActivityPub, an open, decentralized social networking protocol that controls notifications and content. This could potentially rival Twitter and Mastodon.
  • Marketing goldmine, or landmine? Smaller social media apps like Mastodon and Post.news, which foster a decentralized, ad-free platform, could pose challenges for marketers since they don’t allow personalized content or ads.
  • Meet P92, eventually. Meta’s new social media app is still in the development stage and has been codenamed P92.

Remember that whole social media thing? You know, before generative artificial intelligence took over our brains last fall?

Well, the big social media platforms are still out there. Really out there, in some cases. Smaller ones have emerged, and emerged again. And the bigger ones are contemplating creating smaller spinoffs.

The latest: Meta, owners of Facebook and Instagram, wants to build a standalone, text-based app that integrates with ActivityPub, the open, decentralized social networking protocol that delivers APIs for content management and federated server-to-server content management that controls notifications and content. Moneycontrol first reported this news March 10.

Twitter rival? Mastodon rival? Maybe so.

This development means more questions for marketers and customer experience professionals. Particularly, this: will we be able to build true marketing content real estate and valuable customer experiences on these new rising social media apps?

The news comes as Facebook March 14 announced another round of layoffs — 10,000 employees.

Marketer- and Customer Experience-Friendly Social Media Apps?

Here’s the biggest problem with some of these new apps. They’re not exactly marketer-friendly. The point of Mastodon, for instance, is to foster a decentralized, open-source social media platform that has no ads and presents posts in chronological order rather than using an algorithm to predict best-matched content. The site describes itself as a federated network.

Wait, no ads? No personalized content? What is a marketer — and a brand — to do?

Meanwhile, the vision for another new social media app, Post.news, is to be a “virtual watercooler for journalists.” The model: access premium news content without subscriptions or ads where writers share their articles on the site under a paywall. Marketers, advertisers and brands will be limited to posting relevant, informative or entertaining content, rather than running advertisements or posting promotional material.

So that’s good, but not quite marketing nirvana, right?

What We Know About Meta’s Potential Social Media App

Will marketers and customer experience professionals be able to get more pieces of the Meta social media innovation pie? Outside of, of course, the tried and true Facebook and Instagram?

It’s early to tell. News of the possible new social media app from Meta — said to be a Twitter rival — came out just over the past few days. Here’s what we do know so far:

  • Meta’s confirmed the development. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
  • It has a name. The project for this new social media app is codenamed P92, though sources told Moneycontrol it’s still in the idea stage and a work in progress. So it’s entirely unclear how far along it is on the development trail.
  • It may give users ability to share across servers. A source told Moneycontrol the Meta new social app would give users the ability to post to other servers. With Mastodon, you have to pick a server. What are servers related to decentralized social platforms? Mastodon servers, also called “instances,” are individual communities, each with its own rules and culture. A server can be owned by a person, a group or a professional organization, and the server owner is the one who dictates the community’s guidelines. (Imagine trying to crack some marketing eggs over that).
  • Preview, followers and likes. Sound familiar? This new app would have features like tappable links in posts with previews, user bio, username and verification badges, according to Moneycontrol. Comments and messages? Not clear yet. A source did tell Moneycontrol, “The team is also discussing whether to have the ability to reshare content like Twitter apart from business and creator accounts. A rights manager will be integrated from the beginning for first party content, but probably not for third party content from other apps and servers,” said another source.

With No Hard Plans for Meta, Focus on Content

The ultimate message with this latest social media development out of Meta for marketers and customer experience professionals? It’s hard to take any action on Meta’s plans since, for now, they are just that: plans. Nothing concrete.

Social media marketing will always be about what your customers and prospects think it is, and where they are, not you or your brand.

“Plan for more exploration of how to repurpose content, as no single format or platform will serve every moment or need,” CMSWire author Pierre DeBois wrote in an article on his social media vision for 2023: “Marketers should also plan campaign labels to compare channel lift and ROI. Doing so will deepen understanding what intent data streams are created from the video campaigns and events.”

By Dom Nicastro

Dom Nicastro is managing editor of CMSWire and an award-winning journalist with a passion for technology, customer experience and marketing. With more than 20 years of experience, he has written for various publications, like the Gloucester Daily Times and Boston Magazine. He has a proven track record of delivering high-quality, informative, and engaging content to his readers. Dom works tirelessly to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in the industry to provide readers with accurate, trustworthy information to help them make informed decisions.

Sourced from CMSWIRE

Read More
By
In News

Twitter: How to Turn on Password Reset Protection on Mobile

No Comments

By Brandy Shaul

Twitter allows users to turn on password reset protection to add an extra layer of security to their account.

Our guide will show you how to turn on password reset protection from within the Twitter mobile application.

Note: These screenshots were captured in the Twitter mobile app on iOS.

Step 1: Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner of the screen.

image

Step 2: Tap “Settings and Support.”

image

Step 3: Tap “Settings and privacy.”

image

Step 4: Tap “Security and account access.”

image

Step 5: Tap “Security.”

image

Step 6: Tap the gray toggle to the right of “Password reset protect.”

image

Step 7: Enter your Twitter password on the “Save account changes” window that appears on the screen. Then tap the “OK” button on the “Save account changes” window.

image

This guide was first published in August 2018 and was updated in January 2023.

Feature Image Credit: Twitter

By Brandy Shaul

Sourced from ADWEEK

Read More
By
In News

Elon Musk Reveals Twitter Lost 5,200 Employees

No Comments

By

The billionaire drastically cut costs, which included massive job losses after taking control of the platform.

Elon Musk has finally lifted the veil on the workforce at Twitter.

After taking control of the microblogging website at the end of October in exchange for a check for $44 billion, the serial entrepreneur immediately embarked on an austerity cure to make the platform profitable.

It was urgent.

On the one hand, Musk had contracted a debt of $13 billion, which comes from interest payments of around $1.5 billion a year. This debt had been transferred to the company’s balance sheet.

On the other hand, Twitter faced an exodus of advertisers who had chosen to pause the promotion of their products and services while waiting to have a clear idea of ​​the content management policy that Musk was going to put in place.

Half the Jobs Cut in One Day

The tech mogul has always marketed himself as a “free speech absolutist,” meaning he believes any tweet is okay as long as it doesn’t violate the law. For many advertisers, this laissez-faire approach risked turning the platform into a “hellscape.”

The advertiser exodus had a big impact on Twitter’s finances, with Musk saying the company was losing $4 million a day. The billionaire then announced an unprecedented massive reduction in the workforce. He cut half the company’s workers, or 3,750 jobs, in one day.

A few days after these job cuts, the new owner of the social network then asked the remaining employees to work long hours or leave.

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” the billionaire wrote in an email sent to employees on Nov. 16.

“If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below,” he continued. “Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow  will receive three months of severance.”

It is difficult to know what response the whimsical and visionary entrepreneur expected from this ultimatum. More than a thousand employees had decided to leave, which had caused general chaos, forcing Musk to temporarily close offices of Twitter including the headquarters in San Francisco.

The Number Is ‘Incorrect’

Since then, there was a blur on the workforce of the company.

Musk has just clarified things after a CNBC article, citing “internal records,” indicated that the company has “approximately 1,300 active, working employees, including fewer than 550 full-time engineers by title.”

The billionaire claims that CNBC’s figures are false, at least those relating to the total number of Twitter employees.

“The note is incorrect,” the billionaire said on January 21, referring to the article. “There are ~2300 active, working employees at Twitter.”

To another Twitter user mentioning the article, Musk repeated: “It is actually not true. Employee headcount is almost double that.”

Basically, Twitter, which had 7,500 employees at the beginning of November, lost 5,200 employees in just over two months.

In addition, Musk took the opportunity to talk about the staff allocated to security while civil rights associations are concerned that the sharp reduction in staff has weakened the management of the platform’s content.

“There are still hundreds of employees working on trust & safety, along with several thousand contractors.”

Finally, the billionaire has appeared to respond to critics who accuse him of using employees of his other companies, including Tesla  (TSLA) – Get Free Report engineers, to work at Twitter.

“Less than 10 people from my other companies are working at Twitter,” Musk said.

Musk has also indicated that Twitter will be hiring this year but he did not say what functions or roles the company plans to fill.

“Will Twitter be hiring in 2023?” he was asked.

“Yes,” the Techno King, as he’s known at Tesla, answered.

He did not give further details, such as when the company was planning to start hiring.

The tech sector is in the midst of an austerity cure. In 2022, tech companies cut nearly 100,000 jobs, according to a recent report from outplacement services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. This was more than seven times the number of 2021, when 12,975 jobs were lost in the tech sector.

Over the first 20 days of 2023, more than 55,300 jobs have already been cut, including 12,000 by Google  (GOOGL) – Get Free Report and 10,000 by Microsoft  (MSFT) – Get Free Report, according to data startup Layoffs.fyi.

By

Sourced from TheStreet

Read More
By
In News

Elon Musk Says Twitter Is The ‘Least Wrong Source Of Truth’ — And Divides Internet

No Comments

By Anaya Gairola

Twitter CEO Elon Musk gave a statement that has the internet divided — and it’s about the prominence of the social media platform as a reliable “source of truth.”

What Happened: Musk took to Twitter to share an update about Community Notes, but before that, he said that the microblogging site is “arguably already the least wrong source of truth on the internet.”

Musk’s statement didn’t go well with many Twitter users, while others like Dogecoin

DOGE/USD-4.60%+ Free Alerts

co-creator Billy Markus, also known by his Twitter handle, Shibetoshi Nakamoto, said that “crowdsourcing is much better than a ministry of truth.”

Here are a few more reactions to Musk’s tweet:

This is how you can potentially earn extra income every single month..
Benzinga’s full-time trader Chris Capre is sending simple options trade alerts to traders like you. Click Here to get his trades for only $0.99!

Why It’s Important: Before Musk’s tweet, Community Notes’ official Twitter handle announced that the notes would also be shown on Quote Tweets. The feature is already live on the web app and will soon launch in iOS and Android versions.

Besides the Community Notes update, Twitter has been working on other features. Developer Alessandro Paluzzi shared a series of posts saying that the platform has discarded the downvotes features in the latest Android alpha release and is working on the long-format tweets.

 

By Anaya Gairola

Sourced from BENZINGA

 

Read More
By
In News

Forrester: Brands Shouldn’t Bail on Twitter Altogether

No Comments

By David Cohen

The research firm suggests treating the beleaguered platform like an emerging channel

A new report from Forrester, “Twitter Isn’t Canceled; It’s Downgraded,” stresses that Twitter is far more relevant to users than advertisers and provides suggestions on how marketers should treat the platform moving forward.

Forrester data reveals that 22% of online adults in the U.S. used Twitter weekly in 2022, well behind Facebook (63%) and Instagram (40%).

The company said in the introduction to its report, “Twitter ranks highly on the cultural relevancy scale but low on the advertiser priority list. It’s where news breaks, politicians debate, activists organize and niche communities meet. And despite Twitter users threatening to leave the platform, application downloads are up since Elon Musk took over. No other social media platform—not even Reddit, Mastodon or Hive—can replace Twitter for consumers.”

Principal analyst Kelsey Chickering delved further into the advertising side in a blog post, writing, “The advertising community has given Twitter more oxygen than it deserves since Elon Musk took over. The reality is that Twitter has never been a critical media channel in the overall media mix, comprising just 1.3% of 2022 digital ad spend based on Forrester’s 2022 Advertising Forecast, U.S. Why? The ad experience on Twitter has never quite caught up with other ‘legacy’ social media platforms such as Meta’s family of apps. According to media buyers and social media strategists who spoke with Forrester, Twitter doesn’t quite deliver on lower-funnel performance.”

Forrester said in the report that advertising executives it spoke with believe Twitter’s direct-response ad products pale in comparison to those from Meta when it comes to meeting lower-funnel media goals, and they only rely on Twitter for mid- to upper-funnel media goals like awareness and consideration.

Advertisers also told Forrester Twitter’s targeting and personalization capabilities are less mature than those of other social media platforms.

Forrester suggested that marketers treat Twitter as an emerging channel within the advertising maturity spectrum, breaking out that spectrum as follows:

Always on:

  • Meta: Ad formats for every part of the customer lifecycle and proven performance

Campaign-dependent:

  • Pinterest: Original Pin formats still useful but finding its way in video and commerce
  • Snap: Leader in augmented reality and advanced in providing creative resources to brands
  • LinkedIn: Top channel to capture consumers when they’re in a business mindset

Test and learn:

  • Reddit: Rising star in advertising capabilities and advanced in brand safety
  • TikTok: Social media’s darling but hard to succeed without creator partnerships
  • Twitter: Unevolved ad experience and growing brand safety concerns, but still offers a unique experience for live updates and news

The research firm added that marketers should consider the following questions when planning for the remainder of 2023:

  • Will my brand consistently appear in a space that complies with our safety guidelines? Forrester noted that Twitter’s policy on brand safety and moderation is a moving target at best, suggesting that as these policies change, brands should evaluate them against their own overall digital media brand safety guidelines.
  • To what degree is my target audience spending significant time on Twitter? Forrester said even if an advertiser’s target audience loved Twitter before, they may be shopping around, so brands should determine if their time on Twitter is growing or waning and whether they’ve transferred that time to other platforms.
  • What share of social media spend has Twitter historically held on my media plan? If Twitter hasn’t taken up a large portion of a company’s media spend to date, the dollars are probably easily absorbed elsewhere.
  • What material impact has Twitter had on our business results? Forrester believes advertisers should look at whether they have seen a dip in brand health metrics or sales after shifting their Twitter budget to other channels.
  • Does Twitter deliver an ad or user experience that’s not available on other platforms? Forrester suggests keeping a pulse on Twitter’s changing ad experience and whether other channels can deliver on a brand’s goals and audience.

Chickering wrote in the blog post, “Advertisers such as Chevrolet and Chipotle paused their Twitter spend for fear of appearing beside extremist, racist and inflammatory content. The Washington Post found ads for over 40 advertisers on white nationalist Twitter pages recently reinstated by Musk. At the same time, not every major advertiser has decided that Twitter is unsafe. Amazon continues to run paid media on the platform. Musk also introduced a ‘flash sale’ in an attempt to lure lost advertisers back.”

She suggested that brands that are not comfortable with Twitter in its current state under Musk:

  • Refrain from posting any brand content to Twitter. Direct social media teams’ efforts to other channels that meet brand safety requirements.
  • Monitor and respond to customer-service-related questions. If customers are reaching out for help or have questions about products, continue responding in order to ensure a positive customer experience.
  • Listen for relevant cultural trends or product feedback. As usage continues on the platform, use social listening tools to find out what trends are popping and how consumers are talking about your company’s category to inform your marketing strategy.
  • Test other social media channels. Twitter has downshifted into a social media startup rather than an established platform. Roll your previously dedicated Twitter dollars into a pool of test dollars for channels including TikTok, Reddit and Snapchat.

Finally, Forrester shared the reasons cited in a survey last November of 101 adults in the U.S. who stopped using Twitter or planned to do so in the next month:

  • 31% found content on the platform to be too hateful
  • 29% said there were too many bots or fake accounts
  • 28% found content on the platform to be too political
  • 21% didn’t like the amount of misinformation being spread
  • 21% thought the platform’s moderation process was too strict
  • 18% felt they needed to stop for their mental health
  • 17% don’t support Musk as Twitter’s new owner and CEO

Feature Image Credit: tanyamcclure/iStock

By David Cohen

David Cohen is editor of Adweek’s Social Pro Daily.

Sourced from ADWEEK

Read More
By
In News

Twitter users horrified as 200m leaked email addresses sold on dark web, but who is being blamed for the breach?

No Comments

By

A major security breach at online micro-blogging site Twitter has been blamed on owner Elon Musk’s mass firing of staff.

Over 200 million Twitter users woke up to find their email and log-in details had been posted online.

According to several reports, the data was stolen over a year ago but has only just been put up for sale on ‘Breached’, a dark web market place.

The data, contains emails and partial log-in details for over 200m users is available for sale for the crypto currency equivalent of $2 (£1.69) each.

Alon Gal, of Israeli cyber security firm Hudson Rock first reported the breach over LinkedIn, he said it was “one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen.”

Meanwhile, Bleeping Computer, a New York based tech and security firm. said they had confirmed the validity of a number of the leaked emails. They also said the data included not only email addresses and phone numbers but also names, screen names/user handles, follower count, and account creation date.

The security breach comes as experts question whether Twitter will be able to handle system vulnerabilities. Since taking over the social media platform, Elon Musk has fired over half of Twitter staff.

Last week, two UK politicians saw their Twitter accounts hacked, spelling trouble for public figures on the platform.

A senior threat researcher at Sophos has advised caution saying: “Now is the time to assume a brace position for a possible crash of Twitter. This is what many information security professionals are doing: it’s what everyone should be doing now.”

According to cybersecurity experts at Wedbush Securities, Musk’s mass firing means that no one is left to “fix things” that are broken.

“There’s skeleton staff right now left and I think that’s pretty scary, especially around the cybersecurity side. You start to lose some key engineers, developers, key people internally, I think that’s where this thing can really cascade,” technology analyst Daniel Ives was quoted saying.

Twitter has been approached for comment.

By

Sourced from CITY A.M.

Read More
By
Load More