Elon Musk

With board’s dissolution, Elon is ‘sole director’ of Twitter • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Elon Musk is now lord of the manor over at Twitter after the board of directors was dissolved as part of the merger agreement. While the state of affairs likely isn’t permanent, it does mean that as owner, director, and “Chief Twit,” he has what amounts to ultimate power to hire, fire, and change the social media platform. In an SEC filing, the company detailed some of the many changes having to do with the controversial purchase of the platform by Musk: [A]s a result of the consummation of the Merger, Mr. Musk became the sole director of Twitter. In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, effective as of the effective time of the Merger, the following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the Merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou. You may recognize some or all of those names, and certainly the Twitter board was quite a who’s-who of Silicon Valley. But their watch is finished and the deal they squabbled over is complete. This is not some unprecedented move in a private takeover of a public company, just a part of the process. The board of directors represented the former shareholders and now those shares are owned by someone else. It’s not rare for a board to be cleared this way, and new ones installed as a decision-making and advisory body adjacent to company leadership. That said, because examples of private takeovers at this scale are so few, let alone examples with comparable context, it’s difficult to say with any confidence what would be “normal.” The result, at all events, is that right now Twitter has what amounts to a dictator, and that dictator is reportedly using that power to enact sweeping changes like company-wide cuts and charging for verification. How Musk intends to structure leadership at Twitter is still something of a mystery, probably as much to him as anyone else, but as sole director it’s pretty much his prerogative. It may be that part of the complex and risky financing of the deal entails the installation of certain persons (or indeed kingdoms) in positions of real power and responsibility. Of course Musk is not doing all this alone — he has reportedly surrounded himself with various cronies and operators who, though lacking any actual power as yet, are no doubt doing their utmost to influence the sole director.

Mastodon’s microblogging app saw a record number of downloads after Musk’s Twitter takeover • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, mastodon, open source, Social, TwitterNo Comments

There are signs of a small but growing Twitter exodus underway following Elon Musk’s closure of the deal to buy the social media platform last Thursday. While many Twitter users are taking a wait-and-see approach and may not have fully deleted their accounts at this time, a sizable number of people are currently checking out Twitter alternatives. One of those alternatives is Mastodon, a decentralized social network that gained over 70,000 new sign-ups on Friday, the day after the Musk Twitter takeover completed. And this weekend, the official Mastodon mobile app saw a record number of downloads as more people fleeing Twitter began to seek out a new online home. Mastodon, to be clear, is not a new platform. The free and open-source microblogging service debuted in March 2016, offering a different approach to online social networking. Similar to Twitter, you can follow other users and create posts that can be liked and retweeted (or “tooted,” in Mastodon lingo), use hashtags, share media, and more. But unlike Twitter, Mastodon is a distributed social network where users sign up on individual servers, or nodes, each with its own theme, rules, language, and moderation policy. For instance, the most popular server currently is mastodon.social, touting 817,219 users. A Japanese server pawoo.net is just behind that with some 766,399 users. Users can generally view content and interact with people on other servers, with the exception of any servers in the “fediverse” — the group of interconnected, or federated, servers — that their own server admin has banned. Mastodon works on the web or mobile, including through native mobile apps. In addition to the main Mastodon mobile client, there’s a long list of third-party clients to choose from, too, with names like Tootle, Metatext, Mast, tooot, Toot!, Mastoot, Twidere X, Mercury for Mastodon, Tootoise, Tootter for Mastodon, Stella, and more. There were already signs last week that Mastodon was benefiting from the chaos and concern that’s accompanied the chaotic change in Twitter’s ownership. Looks like #Mastodon is trending on Twitter as more and more people are announcing their new profiles. Welcome to the better social media that does not belong to a single company and cannot be sold, welcome to the fediverse! pic.twitter.com/75pugCA0si — Mastodon (@joinmastodon) October 27, 2022 On Friday, the hashtag #mastodon began trending and many people were tweeting #TwitterMigration as they prepared to make the shift to the open-source service. Even in advance of the Twitter sale, some were checking out Mastodon, noted Eugen Rochko, Mastodon’s founder and lead developer. He said that 18,000 people signed up for Mastodon accounts in the week leading up to the Twitter sale (Oct. 20 to Oct. 27), Wired reported at the time. On Friday, Mastodon shared that number had increased by quite a bit: over 70,000 people signed up for a Mastodon account on that day alone (Oct. 28). (Rochko later noted the figure was actually 70,849, up from 10,801 the day prior.) This influx of new users also helped boost the Mastodon mobile app. As of Friday afternoon, the app had jumped to No. 38 in the Social Networking category on the U.S. App Store, data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicated. This was the app’s highest rank since April 27, 2022 when it had ranked No. 37 — shortly after Musk made his initial offer to buy Twitter, prompting the first Twitter exodus. The highest rank the app had ever seen then was No. 31 on April 26, 2022. That’s since changed, Sensor Tower tells us. The app has now moved up to No. 21 in the Social Networking category on the U.S. App Store, topping its earlier high. It also saw the most installs ever in a single day on Saturday, Oct. 29, with 34,000 new downloads across both iOS and Android that day. And, over the past three days (Oct. 28-30) the app has seen around 91,000 new installs, Sensor Tower says. That’s up 658% when compared with the 12,000 installs from the prior three days (Oct. 25-27). It’s also a sizable chunk of the lifetime installs the app has seen to date, which now total 489,000 across iOS and Android. Germany is Mastodon’s largest market with 37% of installs, followed by the U.S. with 19% and Japan with 7%. However, despite breaking records, Mastodon’s mobile app hasn’t yet broken into the Top Overall iPhone apps on the U.S. App Store. That could be because Mastodon has such a long tail of third-party clients that some app downloads from new users are being siphoned away from the main app and directed elsewhere. For example, the Mastodon app MetaText jumped up 14 positions in its ranking in the Social Networking category while Mercury moved up 3 ranks. Neither are all that sizable, though, with Social Networking category ranks of 469 and 1,295, respectively. There’s no doubt this rapid growth in Mastodon app downloads is directly tied to the Musk Twitter takeover. However, Mastodon’s growth isn’t the only sign that some Twitter users are abandoning the platform. Twitter developer partner Tweepsmap, a Twitter analytics provider, saw a slightly higher than usual drop in the number of “unfollows” on the platform among a sample size of 400,000 Twitter users on Friday, Oct. 28 — or about 30% higher than the usual Friday average. This could signal a somewhat higher number of users were deactivating their accounts than is usual, leading to them “unfollowing” other users as a result. The only other pattern Tweepsmap could detect was that liberal-leaning accounts had higher than usual losses, with a follower drop of < 0.2% — a decline that’s not significant in the grand scheme of things, but also not entirely negligible, either, the company told us. That would likely correlate with the types of Twitter users who are looking to exit a Musk-led platform, but it’s still small enough of an exit to not really hurt Twitter at present. In the meantime, Rochko posted that he’s purchased more powerful hardware to upgrade Mastodon’s

I’m not really in the mood to finance your vanity project • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in EC Media, Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments

News that Elon Musk’s interim Twitter leadership is considering charging users for verification on its platform has caused no end of consternation among current holders of the service’s well-known blue check marks. Complaints have arisen about price (potentially too high) and value offered (potentially too low), among other concerns. It’s also fair to note that before the Musk deal was completed, Twitter had already begun to experiment with subscription-based services targeting its most active users. I am well aware of those efforts as a Twitter addict; I signed up for Twitter Blue and continue to pay for it. (Though it appears to be only a modest revenue driver to date.) The calculus of my support of Twitter, however, has changed. Before the Musk transaction, Twitter’s product cadence had picked up pace. Therefore, buying a cheap pass to beta features, which supported the company where I have long made my digital home, seemed reasonable. Sure, simping for a public company is about as sensical as pining after a celebrity, but what can I say? I’m human. Twitter started to put much-demanded features behind its low paywall, including an edit button. For some folks, that was a draw. However, it felt like Twitter wasn’t taking existing capabilities and putting them in a walled garden. Instead, the service was making new stuff aimed at a more niche audience, charging for incremental functionality. That did not bother me in the least. Now, however, Twitter is controlled by a single person instead of, I presume, owned by a good chunk of its users through index funds. Even more, it is largely owned by one person who took on quite a lot of debt to finance the deal. Encumbered with more obligations than before, Twitter is likely in a hurry to boost the rate at which it generates positive cash flow to service those new debts.

Twitter’s app has only generated $6.4M in consumer spending to date • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, op-ed, Social, Twitter, verificationNo Comments

Elon Musk has a new plan to generate revenue for Twitter. Reportedly, the social media company’s new owner intends to revamp the Twitter Blue premium subscription, currently an optional $4.99 per month for a handful of perks, by upping the price to $19.99 per month while giving subscribers the coveted verification badge. While this plan is problematic for a number of reasons — buying verification devalues it, removing verification from existing users who can’t pay, like journalists and various notable figures, will aid the spread of misinformation — it’s also worth noting that Twitter Blue as it stands today has not been a success. The subscription itself is certainly due for a revamp — just not a completely misguided, ill-thought-out revamp like this. Launched in June 2021, initially in Canada and Australia, before expanding to the U.S. and New Zealand that November, Twitter Blue was meant to help the social media platform diversify its revenue and reduce its reliance on advertisers, who today account for more than 90% of Twitter’s total revenue. The idea with Blue has been to entice Twitter’s heaviest users — its power users — to pay a small monthly fee in order to gain access to a handful of exclusive features such as tools to organize bookmarks, the ability to read news articles without ads, custom icons and navigation, early access to new features, a way to quickly fix a typo, and most recently, the long-awaited Edit button. But so far, none of these options have offered a strong enough incentive to generate significant revenue for Twitter. If anything, Twitter users believe the Edit button should be a feature of the site itself, not an exclusive, paid-only option. And they’ve protested this decision by collectively not jumping to sign up for Twitter Blue, app store data indicates. What’s more, Twitter has oddly chosen at times to roll out new, in-demand features to non-subscribers first instead of to Twitter Blue’s paying customer base, as had been promised. For example, when Twitter this month expanded access to its experimental Status feature, which lets users tag tweets with a sentiment like “Don’t @ me,” “spoiler alert,” “breaking news,” and more, it didn’t include the option in Twitter Blue. That meant paid Twitter users had to watch as a random subset of Twitter’s user base, including many free users, got to play with a fun, new addition to Twitter they couldn’t use. A truly bizarre choice on the company’s part, and one that misunderstands what its power users value. The lack of demand for Twitter Blue can be seen in the insignificant amount of revenue it’s managed to pull in to date. According to data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Twitter’s mobile app has only seen approximately $6.4 million in worldwide consumer spending to date. By comparison, Twitter’s annual revenue in 2021 was $5.08 billion. In the second quarter of this year, Twitter generated $1.18 billion in revenue, $1.08 billion of which was from advertising. (Twitter also generates revenue from data licensing and other sources, so even the difference between these two figures can’t be chalked up to subscriptions alone). Of course, it’s impossible to tell from third-party data exactly how much consumer spending in the Twitter app was directed at Twitter Blue specifically, as Twitter also offered in-app purchases for “Ticketed Spaces” — that is, paid entry into a special event as a part of Twitter’s live audio streaming product. But we can estimate that Ticketed Spaces revenue was only a small fraction of that total, if anything at all, as Twitter found that feature had seen so little adoption it decided to shut it down last month, Twitter recently confirmed to ZebethMedia. Sensor Tower additionally noted that the Twitter Blue monthly subscription was the top in-app purchase, indicating that likely the bulk of the in-app consumer spending comes from Blue subscribers, not those paying for the virtually unused Ticketed Spaces feature. Twitter Blue’s lack of traction isn’t just a symptom of an app with a small user base. Year to date, the company has seen 153 million worldwide installs, slightly down by 3% over the 158 million seen during the same period last year (Jan. 1 through Oct. 27), Sensor Tower said. As of Q2 2022, Twitter had 237.8 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs), it said during earnings. Meanwhile, another social app with a similar subscription model is far outpacing Twitter Blue, despite being live for only a few months. Snapchat also launched its first premium subscription offering this year with Snapchat+. Like Twitter Blue, the $3.99 per month Snapchat+ subscription (cheaper than Blue) is aimed at the app’s power users and offers its own set of exclusive perks. Snapchat+ subscribers today can change the app icon, see who rewatched their Stories, pin someone as their ‘Best Friend,’ change the visibility duration of their Stories, use custom notification sounds, and much more. It’s a good comp for how a social subscription offering could work, if fairly successful. As of Q3 2022, Snapchat+ reached over 1.5 million paying subscribers across more than 170 countries, the company said. Following its June 29, 2022 launch, Sensor Tower data indicates Snapchat+ has generated a little more than $28 million in worldwide consumer spending. It’s also attracting users who are willing to commit to paying for longer periods of time. The Snapchat+ monthly subscription is the top in-app purchase, but the second most popular option is the annual subscription, the firm noted. In other words, in roughly 4 months’ time, Snapchat+ pulled in more than quadruple the revenue that Twitter Blue has over a 17-month period. Even accounting for the fact that Snapchat has 363 million daily active users to Twitter’s 237.8 million (though yes, a slightly different metric as Twitter only counts users who can view its ads — mDAUs, not DAUs), it’s clear that Twitter Blue has not been a smashing success. So, in a sense, Musk would not be wrong to suggest that Twitter Blue needs a

Elon Musk’s plan to charge for Twitter verification will be a misinformation nightmare • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Jason Calacanis, Social, TwitterNo Comments

It’s been less than a week since Elon Musk became “Chief Twit” at Twitter, and he has already come up with ideas that are stupider than walking into HQ with a sink. According to a report from The Verge, the new owner of Twitter wants to charge users $20 per month for a verified blue check. This feature would be part of Twitter Blue, the existing subscription feature that launched last year. Musk has not been subtle about his distaste for the monthly $4.99 product, which admittedly is not very appealing to anyone beyond power users. Currently, subscribing to Twitter Blue gets you early access to some features like the edit button, as well as the ability to change the design of the Twitter app icon on your phone. You can also get ad-free access to certain news sources, as well as a feed of the most talked about articles from the people you follow, and the people they follow. “What committee came up with the list of dog shit features in Blue?!? It’s worth paying to turn it off!” venture capitalist Jason Calacanis texted Elon Musk in April. The exchange was revealed as part of discovery in the trial between Twitter and Musk. “Yeah, what an insane piece of shit!” Musk replied. Now, Calacanis — who changed his Twitter bio to say he is Chief Meme Officer at Twitter — is supposedly part of Musk’s “war room,” alongside Musk’s other VC buddies like David Sacks. Musk and Calacanis have continued toying with the idea of paid user verification since April. Calacanis, per the leaked texts, laid out a five-part plan to Musk, including the concept of a “membership team,” which would “remove bots while getting users to pay for ‘real name membership.’” He also complained that “no one is setting priorities ruthlessly” at Twitter, and that “12,000 people are working on whatever they want.” Musk responded, “Want to be a strategic advisor to Twitter if this works out?” The desire to “authenticate all humans” has been part of Musk’s plan since he initially made his takeover bid. Potential security flaws aside, this plan ignores the fundamental difference between verifying someone’s identity, and giving someone a blue check to denote that they are who they say they are. “You could easily clean up bots and spam and make the service viable for many more users — removing bots and spam is a lot less complicated than what the Tesla self driving team is doing,” Calacanis texted Musk. “And why should blue check marks be limited to the elite, press and celebrities? How is that democratic?” Musk and his buddies view this plan as a way to get people to actually give Twitter money. But by monetizing a symbol that currently has value, they will ultimately remove all of that existing value. Blue checks exist on social platforms as a means of combatting misinformation. Currently, if someone makes a fake account pretending to be a world leader, journalist or celebrity, it’s easy to tell it’s a fake if the account doesn’t have a blue check. But under this newly proposed system, there’s not much incentive to pay the $20 per month to stay verified, especially since the once-coveted symbol would be available to anyone willing to pay. It’s quite possible that bad actors trying to pose as journalists to spread fake news would be more incentivized to pay the $20 than actual journalists. The Chief Twit doesn’t seem to care very much about the dangers of misinformation, though. Just this weekend, Musk tweeted (and then deleted) a fraudulent conspiracy theory about the attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Another avenue for this feature could be to charge corporations like Netflix or Steak-umm (which has a great Twitter presence) to be verified. Corporate clients are likely more willing than a local nonprofit newsroom to drop $20 a month per account to prove legitimacy. Yet this still doesn’t solve the misinformation issue, and if anything, it pressures companies into buying a product that they’ve gotten free for years in order to prevent a possible PR problem. For now, it doesn’t seem like Twitter users are particularly enthusiastic about this plan. Calacanis posted a poll asking how much people would pay to be verified, and at the time of publication, about 81% of over a million respondents said that they would not pay. But as our own Ivan Mehta wrote earlier, “Seven days is a long time in Elonverse and he might come up with a different verification tactic altogether.” Hopefully, that plan is a bit more thought-through than this one.

Elon Musk is revamping Twitter’s verification system — and it might involve a monthly fee • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, Twitter, verificationNo Comments

Twitter’s verification program has always been a complicated and controversial affair. The company has paused and resumed the application process many times to make it more streamlined. In the Elon Musk ownership era, the social media company could be looking to flip the script around verification: pay $20 per month and you will get a verified badge. According to a report from The Verge, the company is looking to introduce a new and more expensive version of Twitter Blue — the platform’s paid plan — that will cost $19.99 per month and give its users a verified badge. Currently, Twitter Blue costs $4.99 per month in the U.S and is available in other geographies like New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. The report noted that Twitter is rushing to launch this new subscription plan by November 7. What’s more shocking is that the social network is planning to remove verification badges from current holders if they don’t pay for Twitter Blue within 90 days. Given that verified users are present all across the world, it’s hard to enforce this rule unless the subscription program becomes available globally. In May, the New York Times reported that Musk presented a pitch deck to Twitter investors with goals ranging from increased subscriber revenue to achieving 69 million Twitter Blue users by 2025. These early changes to Twitter’s paid plan might be a step to get to that mark. Twitter’s “Chief Twit” Musk didn’t really give out the details of the new program but he replied to a conversation between spaceflight photographer John Kraus and a16z partner, Sriram Krishnan, that the verification process is being revamped. The whole verification process is being revamped right now — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2022 $20 sounds like a lot of money just to get a verified badge and many folks like Kara Swisher are not ready to pay that amount. A poll by investor Jason Calacanis — to which Musk replied “interesting” — also has a majority of the people saying no to paying any amount for verification. The central point of the verification program was to identify genuine profiles of political leaders, celebrities, researchers, and journalists so users don’t fall for the information posted by fake accounts. If the new verification process goes through, it might be a free-for-all where any paid user can pretend to be a person of prominence for a while and spread misinformation. But we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. Seven days is a long time in Elonverse and he might come up with a different verification tactic altogether.

Elon Musk refutes Twitter layoff timing to affect year-end compensation • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 30, 2022Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, elon musk buys twitter, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Elon Musk, Chief Twit, has refuted claims from a New York Times report this weekend that states he plans to lay off employees before Tuesday, November 1, thus cutting staff off from receiving stock grants as part of their compensation. In response to a tweet from Eric Umansky, deputy managing editor of ProPublica, that said Musk was “making sure to fire people at Twitter before part of their year-end compensation kicks in on Tuesday,” Musk said: “This is false.” He didn’t provide any clarification about what, specifically, was false. Umansky’s tweet included a screenshot of a highlighted portion of the NYT story that also noted stock grants make up a significant portion of an employee’s pay, and by laying off workers before that date, Musk may avoid paying the grants. Musk did not respond to ZebethMedia’s request for clarification on whether the layoffs will affect stock compensation. He may very well have been refuting the entire NYT article, which stated Musk is said to have ordered job cuts across the company, citing “four people with knowledge of the matter.” But that seems unlikely, given the layoffs that are already underway. Previous reports said Musk would layoff 75% of Twitter’s staff, but last week when the executive visited Twitter headquarters, he said those numbers weren’t correct. Still, reports have been surfacing about various layoffs at the social media company, including of top Twitter executives like CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde. Musk’s $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter went through late on Thursday last week. The New York Stock Exchange stopped trading Twitter’s stock on Friday morning, where it had been listed since 2013. Twitter will officially be delisted from the stock exchange on November 8. Current shareholders will be paid $54.20, Musks’s buying price, per share. It’s not clear how Twitter’s now-private status will affect current employees with stock grants.

Elon Musk completes Twitter purchase, Meta’s in trouble and it’s time to admit self-driving cars ain’t gonna happen • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 2022Posted in Apple, Argo AI, Elon Musk, meta, Startups, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hey, folks, welcome back to another edition of ZebethMedia Week in Review, the place where we point you to the hottest stories of the past sevenish days. I’m stepping in front of the laptop for Greg Kumparak this week, but don’t fret, he will be back soon. If you want this goodness in your inbox every Saturday, head on over here to sign up. Now, let’s get to it. most read (Elon edition, somewhat) Elon did it: He bought Twitter. The $44 billion acquisition closed this week and on day 1, the platform’s new owner “cleaned house,” Taylor and Amanda write, firing CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde. The purchase capped off months of ups and downs, and this week was no different. Darrell rounded up some highlights. Elon’s layoff about-face: While Elon Musk immediately fired some folks at the top, earlier this week in a reversal from his layoff declaration last week, he said he won’t actually lay off 75% of Twitter’s staff — or 5,600 people — writes Rebecca, citing a Bloomberg report. Apple’s Elon problem: Darrell’s headline says it all, really: “Twitter’s Elon problem could soon become Apple’s Elon problem, too.” At issue is that Apple updated its developer guidelines this week, one of which “seeks rent on revenue made by social networks around promoted posts.” Argo AI shutdown: Autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI, flush at launch in 2017 with $1 billion, has shut down. Its parts, writes Kirsten Korosec, are “being absorbed into its two main backers: Ford and VW.” Speaking of autonomous vehicles: After the Argo AI news hit, Darrell took to the site to explore the fact that, no, autonomous vehicles just aren’t going to happen. MrBeast’s worth: Amanda asks if MrBeast, or 24-year-old YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, is worth the $1.5 billion he’s valuing his business at. Meta is in trouble: That’s the headline. Meta reported its third-quarter results this week and they weren’t great. As Taylor writes: “With the Instagram portion of the business not looking so hot lately, Meta has quintupled down on the metaverse without examining if it even knows what users want at all these days. And after changing the name of the company while ruining a perfectly fine word in the process, there are no easy take-backs.” Meta really was a perfectly fine word. Google Pixel 7’s “dumb” flaw: Haje took a picture through an airplane window and noticed a reflection caused by the reflective chrome surrounding the phone’s camera lens. “It’s a pretty common use case for most photography applications, which makes it all the harder to grok why Google went out of its way to make that experience worse.” audio roundup On Equity this week, we share with you one of Natasha Mascarenhas’s Disrupt panels. She talked to Chief co-founders Lindsay Kaplan and Carolyn Childers about the future of their private membership club for women in leadership positions. This week on Found, Darrell and Jordan sat down with Shanthi Rajan from construction management software company Linarc to discuss breaking into a slow-changing industry, building a team with talent across the globe and working with customers to build the most useful product possible. And on Chain Reaction, Anita and Jacquelyn chat about Apple’s new App Store guidelines, Reddit’s foray into the NFT space and whether the U.K.’s new prime minister will live up to the hype he’s received from the crypto community. techcrunch+ 5 tips for launching in a crowded web3 gaming market. Contributor Corey Wilton explains the steps that will set you apart when looking for capital. Pitch Deck Teardown: Palau Project. Haje usually passes on tearing down pre-seed rounds, but he went for it this week with the Palau Project, which was founded by professional kite-surfer Jerome Cloetens, who is taking on climate change.

GM pauses paid advertising on Twitter as Chief Twit Elon Musk takes ownership • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, General Motors, Social, Transportation, TwitterNo Comments

General Motors has temporarily paused paid advertising on Twitter, one day after billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk finalized a $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform. CNBC was the first to report GM’s decision. ZebethMedia confirmed the U.S. automaker’s decision. “We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership,” the company said in an emailed statement to ZebethMedia. “As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions on Twitter will continue.” It’s unclear what percentage of GM’s total advertising budget is dedicated to Twitter. Most, if not all, automakers have a presence on Twitter. Although not all of them opt for paid advertising. Ford, GM, Stellantis, Porsche, VW and Volvo are just a handful of the established automakers along with newer companies like Rivian that have social media accounts on the platform. Fisker is still on Twitter even after its founder and CEO Henrik Fisker deleted his personal account in April following the announcement of the Musk-Twitter deal. Musk tried to quell advertisers’ fear earlier this week with a note posted on his personal Twitter account about his intended approach to running the social media platform. “There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising,” Musk wrote. “Most of it has been wrong.” He went on to write that he believes Twitter has the potential to be a “common digital town square,” and that the platform cannot be “a free-for-all hellscape.” Musk’s promises might not be enough for GM as it seeks to compete and even surpass Tesla in EV sales.