Despite the barrage of negative news headlines in mainstream media’s attempt to cash in by turning the new Twitter into a negative news cycle with clickbait headlines to jack up clicks and video views, Twitter is working better than ever.
Here’s the vision of the future for Twitter as Elon Musk described it at a recent internal meeting:
* Twitter Advertising as entertainment
* Twitter Video
* Longform tweets
* Encrypted DMs
* Twitter Blue Verified
* Twitter Payments
The first one, Twitter advertising as entertainment, is aligned with the idea of making Twitter ads finally payoff and achieve reach potential and engagement. The idea of advertising as something interesting is not new, but it has never really had its coming of age yet.
Video is not new on Twitter, but it has suffered the same approach in the past on most social media platforms: throw the video out in the feed, maybe have a description and comments. It sort of works, but lacks innovation. There’s not much said by Elon as to how this will take shape, so this is on to watch.
This has been a divisive issue on Twitter, but I’m all for longer tweets. If you want to limi yourself to your version of the 140 character style of tweeting, you still have that option.
But longform tweets opens the door to a new type of communication on Twitter, allowing for longer captions, deeper thought and more ideas.
It’s strange to me that encryption hasn’t been in more wide use for direct messages in the past, but it’s now moving to be a social media standard. Hacks happen, leaks happen and privacy is a must-have option. I’m excited to Twitter encrypted DMs.
Blue Verified is something that I see as a very positive thing. It’s a cliche by now to see that with online tools and services “if you’re not paying for it, then you’re the product.” I will glad pay for less ads, more reach and extra options.
Something had to be done to topple the hierarchy that has reigned on Twitter for too long: the news media and anybody who’s willing to push people’s emotional buttons is gaming the algorithms for more reach, at the expense of the rest of us.
It’s no wonder that big Twitter influencers and the news media is so against this: their days of reign are coming to end.
Twitter payments is long overdue, as is any sort of social media platform payments. This is one place where Twitter is moving to a WhatsApp, everything style of app. YouTube and Twitch have forms of this, but it’s implementation by Meta and Instagram has been horribly botched and that’s an opportunity for Twitter — not to just support the people you follow, but to make payments to anyone.
Remember Elon Musik is one of the co-founders of PayPal, so he has experience is creating a payments platform. This could help make Twitter payments a new standard ion social media platform payments.
Conclusion
So I’m super hyped about the potential of the new Twitter 2.0. For all the outcry over the change, the Twitter platform was a stale cesspool of hate and arguments. The future of Twitter looks much more promising than the past.
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