A New Act of Twitter

Elon Musk finalized his $44B deal last Thursday. He brought a sink to Twitter HQ last Wednesday. I'm not sure what he wanted to sink in, but I got that he thought Twitter was stuck with something and wanted to show off himself as a savior.

Many worried about layoff storms and hikes of hate speeches on Twitter. Mr. Musk has already fired the CEO and the CFO; that could be a happy exit from the mass with tens of millions of dollars in compensation. But to others, he might not be a generous conqueror. There have been a lot of layoff rumors, and we'll get it tomorrow. On November 1st, Twitter should give RSUs to their employees for the compensation package. Halloween could be an actual gloomy day for some Twitter employees this year.

Mr. Musk wants to turn Twitter into X - an everything app. I guess it would be something like WeChat in China or KakaoTalk in South Korea. But it will take some time, and it will be a game of whether Twitter can retain its users during the change. If the layoff occurs tomorrow and affects (as many worry about) its content moderation, it might devastate the company's reputation.

I couldn't have decided if I would leave Twitter yet. But I'm wondering what would be my Twitter replacement. I'm using Twitter mainly for two purposes: 1) to get breaking news or updates and 2) to get updates from celebs I'm following. For 2), I might find a new way to connect with them; recently, I joined my favorite voice actress, Tomoyo Kurosawa fan page. However, frankly, it is hard to find replacements for 1). Many services, such as 511 SF Bay (traffic info) or Palo Alto Utilities, give timely alerts with Twitter. Each service might get to build its own apps and alert systems, but it would definitely be too costly. So, Jack Dorsey's new social network experiment is getting my interest. It is a decentralized 'protocol' dubbed ADX (Authenticated Data Experiment). It sounds like another hype of the coin/blockchain world, but it was my first time thinking the technology has some positive potential.

So, what will come? The drama got its period. But, right away, we'll see the first act of the new show tomorrow.