Elon Musk now owns 9.2% of twitter...update.. will soon be the sole owner as Board of Directors accepts his purchase offer

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Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
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Reminds me of the quote, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

In other news:

9eUvw8W.png
It's really nice how all of these rich people have gone out of their way lately to prove money doesn't buy happiness... or class.
 
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kt

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2000
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MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
23,155
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every day I get a few more notifications of people from my Insta now on threads who I'm following or also are following me.
 

VRAMdemon

Diamond Member
Aug 16, 2012
7,060
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Because Zuck doesn't have a personality.

Yes, but then again, Zuck has been happily married to his college sweetheart for 11 years and is an active dad to his three children, whereas Musk is thrice-divorced, his children hate him, and he once tried to buy an employee a horse in exchange for a handjob.

Lol ... A "dick measuring contest?! .. seriously!? Anymore he just sounds like a drug addict with too much power.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
24,027
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Yes, but then again, Zuck has been happily married to his college sweetheart for 11 years and is an active dad to his three children, whereas Musk is thrice-divorced, his children hate him, and he once tried to buy an employee a horse in exchange for a handjob.

Lol ... A "dick measuring contest?! .. seriously!? Anymore he just sounds like a drug addict with too much power.
As someone else said in this thread, it takes an Elon to make Zuck look good :)
 
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cytg111

Lifer
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MrSquished

Lifer
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Been using threads a bit more lately. It's actually pretty nice to check a few times a day. All the people I followed on insta plus I've probably added like 35 more accounts to follow. All just good stuff that used to make Twitter fun.

Threads is missing a lot of things still like hashtags and a web interface and more timeline options, but even still it's just nicer.

Let's see how fast meta iterates this but I think bluesky is in some trouble now as in just by being too late to the game. This was their moment and meta moved up the release of threads to take advantage of the perfect storm and it's working.

Twitter will keep going but will become MySpace at some point, plotting along until eventually, flatlining.

It's nice to have NPR tweeting again.
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
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It's really nice how all of these rich people have gone out of their way lately to prove money doesn't buy happiness... or class.

Well, between Musk/Twitter, Oceangate, Kwasi Kwateng's budget and Putin's strategic decision-making (and maybe you could chuck Prince Andrew's car-crash interview in there as well) they certainly have proved there's absolutely no correlation between wealth and talent/sense/intelligence (except possibly a negative one).
 
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akugami

Diamond Member
Feb 14, 2005
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Twitter has been blowing off its severance obligations (like it’s been blowing off all its obligations).


Agile payroll.


Definition: The Agile methodology is a project management approach that involves breaking the project into phases and emphasizes continuous collaboration and improvement. Teams follow a cycle of planning, executing, and evaluating.

Ok, we've broken up the payroll process into, work, and pay should come next right? How much further can we break up this payroll process thingy?

I'm no billionaire genius like Phony Stark, but I'm not seeing how this is an improvement over the old payroll process.
 

RnR_au

Platinum Member
Jun 6, 2021
2,062
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Twitter will keep going but will become MySpace at some point, plotting along until eventually, flatlining.
Unlikely. There are stories on my Ukrainian/Russian war twitter list about folks on Threads being banned for talking about this war. The head of the Threads effort have said that they are not interested in news or current affairs. They want a PG rated community that won't alienate any advertisers.

I doubt you will get timeline options. Its a free product, so you are the product. Its all about ads and engagement.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
23,155
21,281
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Unlikely. There are stories on my Ukrainian/Russian war twitter list about folks on Threads being banned for talking about this war. The head of the Threads effort have said that they are not interested in news or current affairs. They want a PG rated community that won't alienate any advertisers.

I doubt you will get timeline options. Its a free product, so you are the product. Its all about ads and engagement.

Yeah I don't think how you understand how any of this works.

They are definitely iterating threads and they have announced it and there won't be ads until at least a billion users. So even if they don't quite get to a billion it's going to be a while.

Of course they're going to iterate and add features. Thread launch was moved up because it was perfect timing after Elon made yet an even more bone-headed move than he's made so far with Twitter which is fucking unbelievable. By limiting tweet views and login requirements.

Meta was smart they saw an opening and released what's pretty much an early release candidate of a product because it was the perfect moment to pounce.

I'm already getting news on threads. NPR is on there and they left Twitter because Elon is a fucking shithead and labeled them state media.

New York times, in my threads feed.

Threads will get more features and a browser-based interface as well. Twitter is done because Elon showed that when he is not corralled in by heavy management teams he is a fucking asshole moron That just wasted 44 billion in the worst business deal in the history of the world.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
24,027
13,536
136
Twitter has been blowing off its severance obligations (like it’s been blowing off all its obligations).


Agile payroll.
All these unpaid bills, going back some time right, makes me think he has been preparing for bankruptcy all along? But why tf would anyone buy a business to the tune of 44b just to tank it?
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,285
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Yeah I don't think how you understand how any of this works.

They are definitely iterating threads and they have announced it and there won't be ads until at least a billion users. So even if they don't quite get to a billion it's going to be a while.

Of course they're going to iterate and add features. Thread launch was moved up because it was perfect timing after Elon made yet an even more bone-headed move than he's made so far with Twitter which is fucking unbelievable. By limiting tweet views and login requirements.

Meta was smart they saw an opening and released what's pretty much an early release candidate of a product because it was the perfect moment to pounce.

I'm already getting news on threads. NPR is on there and they left Twitter because Elon is a fucking shithead and labeled them state media.

New York times, in my threads feed.

Threads will get more features and a browser-based interface as well. Twitter is done because Elon showed that when he is not corralled in by heavy management teams he is a fucking asshole moron That just wasted 44 billion in the worst business deal in the history of the world.

I don't think even the people in charge of this stuff know how any of it actually works in the sense you seem to think. If they did then Elon would've been successful with Twitter, or Meta would've taken over the world and we'd be living in Zuckerbergs shitty online "reality". Or Google+ wouldn't have been a failure. Or Microsoft would've dominated it all with Kin and their various attempts at getting in on social media.

Guaranteed Meta/Facebook/Instagram is paying the big influencers to move, and it absolutely is 1000% about advertising, that's literally their business, and dominates everything they do. Your argument is just...wtf. "They're not gonna do ads til a billion users" like we can trust a single things these companies say. Not that it matters, because that'd be the point, they want to entice you in then throw ads at you. That's how this stuff has consistently worked. Only now, it really would be like flipping a switch as they already have all the ad delivery systems in place.

Threads is having a moment, but its out of a fuck you to Musk's version of Twitter. We'll see if it lasts any, especially once they start the advertising push and all those you're acting like is some incredible get start pulling the same shenanigans (where they just push you to their websites or other like how they were operating Twitter). My guess is it'll likely end up mostly being Instagram users longer term.

Someone (probably Microsoft, although I could see Google or even Apple, probably Amazon, bid) will buy up the ashes of Twitter after Musk runs it into the ground, and return it mostly to what it was, but using their infrastructure (which could actually likely make it better) and many of the Twitter people will flock back. Microsoft will probably try to integrate it in various ways (Xbox, in Windows, Edge/Bing with AI bots), and that stuff will probably mostly flop (outside of people that already were actively using both), but they'll likely leave the base aspects intact and that'll keep the base Twitter people using it (especially since Microsoft has pretty much gone platform agnostic).

I honestly don't care. Twitter is about the most pointless social media site. I could actually see Apple basically integrating something like it into iMessage. And other platforms (WeChat and some of those) I think already basically have. Some of those have people revolving their entire lives around use of the app.
 

Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
4,340
5,464
136
Guaranteed Meta/Facebook/Instagram is paying the big influencers to move,

They don't have to, so why would they?

Threads is using Instagram as a Trojan Horse. Most "influencers" (AKA attention whores), will already have Instagram accounts, and they can see an easy opportunity for more attention, and the ability convert their Instagram followers into Threads followers. Plus they can see the direction of the wind blowing against Twitter. If it ever become some kind of cause, to ditch toxic Twitter, they can painlessly do so when their Threads account is getting more traffic.

Challenge for today: find a high profile "influencer" on Twitter that doesn't have an Instagram account.

Challenge for year end: find one that doesn't have a Threads account by then.

It's a massive advantage no other "Twitter Killler" has. It already has the "Social Graph" with ready made accounts, just waiting to be turned on.

All Threads has to do, to win, is iterate, listen to users (a bit) and avoid minefields.

Threads would have been a headache for a Twitter run by competent people. For Elon Musk's Twitter, it's a death blow.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
11,901
2,846
136
They don't have to, so why would they?

Threads is using Instagram as a Trojan Horse. Most "influencers" (AKA attention whores), will already have Instagram accounts, and they can see an easy opportunity for more attention, and the ability convert their Instagram followers into Threads followers. Plus they can see the direction of the wind blowing against Twitter. If it ever become some kind of cause, to ditch toxic Twitter, they can painlessly do so when their Threads account is getting more traffic.

Challenge for today: find a high profile "influencer" on Twitter that doesn't have an Instagram account.

Challenge for year end: find one that doesn't have a Threads account by then.

It's a massive advantage no other "Twitter Killler" has. It already has the "Social Graph" with ready made accounts, just waiting to be turned on.

All Threads has to do, to win, is iterate, listen to users (a bit) and avoid minefields.

Threads would have been a headache for a Twitter run by competent people. For Elon Musk's Twitter, it's a death blow.
I'm not a tech exec, but it's hard to see how Twitter can be saved by a smarter CEO at this point. You've covered why Threads is a serious competitor, but there are at least a couple reasons that it'll take a miracle to pull Twitter out of its free fall.

First, Elon tanked the business in summer 2022 well before he officially closed the purchase. He'd created so much uncertainty that advertisers ran for the exits well before he took over. Twitter was never a wildly profitable business, but they've had some quarters with net profits. Most likely they could have muddled along for years, but Elon has seemingly permanently damaged the business model (esp. with all of his antics after taking over). I don't know if his original plan was to actually get rid of 80% of the workforce, but he was forced to do so just to "right size" the collapsed business. And unlike Alphabet or Meta, Twitter doesn't have a real profit-making business unit that allows them to subsidize a bunch of failures.

Secondly, if you look at the history of social networks, it's been said they all have a "shelf life" until some new, cool kid emerges and takes over. Twitter's inevitable decline was called years ago by some industry watchers, and you'll notice their active user base is a lot smaller than the true behemoths such as FB or TikTok. Even Facebook which is way "too big to fail" isn't what it was a decade ago: advertisers coveted age 18-25 segment stopped using FB once their parents (and their parents) inundated it. You could argue that as of today, only IG and TikTok haven't already reached their "Best by" dates.

Twitter may never die, but they're well on their way to becoming another Yahoo!
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,710
51,001
136
I'm not a tech exec, but it's hard to see how Twitter can be saved by a smarter CEO at this point. You've covered why Threads is a serious competitor, but there are at least a couple reasons that it'll take a miracle to pull Twitter out of its free fall.

First, Elon tanked the business in summer 2022 well before he officially closed the purchase. He'd created so much uncertainty that advertisers ran for the exits well before he took over. Twitter was never a wildly profitable business, but they've had some quarters with net profits. Most likely they could have muddled along for years, but Elon has seemingly permanently damaged the business model (esp. with all of his antics after taking over). I don't know if his original plan was to actually get rid of 80% of the workforce, but he was forced to do so just to "right size" the collapsed business. And unlike Alphabet or Meta, Twitter doesn't have a real profit-making business unit that allows them to subsidize a bunch of failures.

Secondly, if you look at the history of social networks, it's been said they all have a "shelf life" until some new, cool kid emerges and takes over. Twitter's inevitable decline was called years ago by some industry watchers, and you'll notice their active user base is a lot smaller than the true behemoths such as FB or TikTok. Even Facebook which is way "too big to fail" isn't what it was a decade ago: advertisers coveted age 18-25 segment stopped using FB once their parents (and their parents) inundated it. You could argue that as of today, only IG and TikTok haven't already reached their "Best by" dates.

Twitter may never die, but they're well on their way to becoming another Yahoo!
He's also just made the actual core product much worse. Not only have a lot of people I used to follow either left entirely or cut way back on their posting and now most posts have a legion of blue checkmarks posting absolute shit that you have to wade through to get to anything interesting.

It really shows that Musk never understood the thing he was buying - his genius business decision was to amplify all the people to boring or annoying for people to pay attention to them on the merits. What kind of moron puts the boring people in the front row?