Elon Musk has now been in control of Twitter/X for 9 months, which has seen a raft of modifications applied on the app, together with UI tweaks, useful updates, expanded choices for paying subscribers, shifts in coverage, and extra.
Marking the brand new milestone, at present, X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who herself has been within the position for solely two months, has taken the chance to credit score her new crew for his or her progress in growing the app, in alignment with Musk’s imaginative and prescient, which, in keeping with Yaccarino, has seen a heap of upgrades shipped in difficult circumstances.
As per Yaccarino:
“As we construct the way forward for X, the tempo of innovation speaks for itself. If we will obtain this in 9 months, simply think about the scope of our ambition within the subsequent 12 months. To the entire groups and companions making it occur on a regular basis, thanks. To our passionate, rising communities of film buffs, sports activities fanatics, tech trailblazers, and the world over – the way forward for X belongs to YOU – blaze your glory!”
The latter notice being a reference to Twitter’s new ‘Blaze Your Glory’ tagline, which is a reference, intentional or not, to dying in a hail of gunfire. Not precisely positive how that applies on this occasion.
To underline the crew’s progress, Yaccarino has revealed an inventory of 73 key updates that the X crew has rolled out underneath Musk:
Which seems spectacular, particularly when you think about that the X crew has achieved all this with 80% fewer employees, after Musk’s mass cull.
However on nearer scrutiny, it’s not a completely correct illustration of recent work being achieved on the app.
The overwhelming majority of those tasks have been in growth earlier than Musk got here in, together with Neighborhood Notes, Subscriptions, view counts, long-form posts, and so forth. Most of those, as Musk himself has acknowledged, have been already near launch, however hadn’t been given the inexperienced gentle by earlier administration. So that they’re not precisely new updates that the a lot smaller X crew have totally applied, as such.
By my rely, of the 73 updates Yaccarino has listed, simply 12 of them are literally new, together with the up to date Twitter Blue (now ‘XBlue’) verification program, longer video uploads, the launch of its advert income share program, bookmark counts, voice and video calls, Highlights tab, improved video playback, and job listings.
The remainder of these improvements are both repeatedly talked about within the record, have been already developed by the earlier Twitter crew, or aren’t really key upgrades in any respect (price limits, the launch of its watered-down transparency report, minor video performance modifications).
So solely 16% of those listed upgrades are literally new components. Which remains to be progress, and stays considerably spectacular with so few employees really left within the constructing. However I’ve by no means seen a platform so eager to pat itself on the again, and if that’s what you’re doing, you most likely wish to be certain that these are certainly invaluable, related enhancements that you simply’re claiming accountability for.
The true problem now, nonetheless, is what X does subsequent. There aren’t actually every other shelved components from Twitter 1.0 ready to be launched, so no matter comes any more is definitely being wholly constructed by Elon’s new X crew. As such, the modifications which can be rolled out shifting ahead will extra intently mirror Elon’s imaginative and prescient for the app, and that’ll give us a a lot better concept of how they’re in a position to handle such with their skeleton crew.
Many have been predicting that, at some stage, Musk’s deep employees cuts will impede the app.
As Yaccarino is proud to focus on, that hasn’t occurred but, but it surely’ll be fascinating to see how this record develops over the following 9 months, and what that reveals of X’s new growth method.
You possibly can learn Yaccarino’s full record of X achievements right here.
