Twitter rebrands to ‘X’
The headline taking the social media world by storm this week has been the death of Twitter and the subsequent birth of ‘X’. Elon Musk announced that he was changing the name of the app from ‘Twitter’ to ‘X’, hoping that this will “facilitate a much broader range of functions, making X a key interactive component in billions of users’ lives.”
The new icon is now appearing in various places in the app. On desktop, the bird icon in the top left is now the new X. The default colour of the app will also be changed from blue to black, and tweets will be called an ‘X’ according to Musk.
The plan for ‘X’ remains quite vague at the moment, however it is clear to see that this is Musk’s final push to hit back at Meta after the release of Threads and that we can expect some interesting additions to come in the following months.
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Threads usage down by 70% since launch
While Musk continues with his rebranding of Twitter, Meta’s ‘Twitter dethroner’, Threads, has seemingly stumbled from its initial launch, based on the latest third-party usage stats.
A recent report published by industry-respected data recorder, Sensor Tower, suggests that Thread’s daily active user count has dropped by around 70% since its launch. For the second week in a row, the number of daily active users has declined, falling to 13 million, meanwhile, Twitter’s daily active users remain steady at about 200 million.
Despite the decline, new features are set to be added to Threads to make it a lot less one-dimensional. Zuckerberg is set to add a ‘Following’ feed, in variance to the current AI-recommended ‘Home’ timeline, which should help to raise the active users on the platform.
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Apple begins testing of ‘Apple GPT’
According to a report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is developing AI tools to rival OpenAI and Google. Gurman states that they’ve created an internal chatbot known as “Apple GPT” and are planning a significant AI-related announcement next year.
The internal rollout was delayed due to security concerns about generative AI but has now been made available to more employees with special approval. The chatbot is used for product prototyping, summarising text and answering questions based on training data.
Apple is actively seeking generative AI talent through job postings and is focusing on addressing privacy concerns related to AI, following a thoughtful approach to its integration across offerings.
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Meta’s top tips for Threads engagement
Meta has recently provided pivotal advice as to how businesses can boost their engagement on Threads. Despite a drop in engagement, the app’s potential success is evident with 116 million sign-ups, meaning there is a large user base for businesses to be hitting with their content.
Upcoming features to the platform such as a ‘follow feed’ and a desktop app are expected to increase engagement on the platform as a whole. However, Meta has advised that brands should make a strong entrance on the platform by sparking conversations and being authentic in their Threads.
Meta has also recommended that businesses should utilise challenges and contests that become popular on the platform, alongside incorporating the app’s safety tools to ensure they are hitting their desired audiences with their posts. With the potential for the platform to grow, businesses should keep note of these tips in order to reap the rewards of engagement.
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