& #WowOnWednesday
It was the emergence of two new players in recent weeks, Threads from Meta and Bluesky from Jack Dorsey, that made me realise how much I love Twitter, or X, as it has now been named by its owner Elon Musk.
I have a nerdy interest in social media because of my professional background. As a former marketing director I had to be on top of trends, so I always investigated anything new.
X from Elon Musk
I've been on Twitter (now X) since 2008 but mainly as a spectator. I've never had a big following. It was actually only recently that I finally discovered my "tribe."
I became serious about book blogging about a year ago and found there's an engaged and close knit community. I created my own list of publishers, authors and book bloggers and this list now dictates my feed.
Many people have left X because of the "pile-ons" that are synonymous with the platform. I ignore them. I find X invaluable for breaking news: many stories break there first, leaving organizations like the BBC sometimes 40 minutes behind.
I also find X a source of heart warming human goodness. Many tweets go viral with acts of random kindness. I see warmth and kindness from strangers when people write of their deteriorating mental health.
However, I've noticed that a lot of the people I was following on X have left. Similarweb says X has seen an 18.3% fall in users since March 2023.
There is less content moderation, following Musk's job cuts, and I'm told nudity and sexual content is now rampant. I don't see it in my feed, fortunately. There's constant speculation that sooner or later the platform will cease to exist.
Having realised the importance of X to me as a content creator, I've now become verified.
But what of the alternatives?
Bluesky from Jack Dorsey
A few months ago, before I found my tribe on X, I noticed that one of the founders of the former Twitter Inc, Jack Dorsey, was creating a new platform called Bluesky and asking people to join a wait list. A week ago I was finally invited to join.
I anticipated that Dorsey would have recruited many of the hundreds of developers sacked by Musk, and that Bluesky would already be a formidable competitor to X. I was surprised to find it's very much a beta.
Tumbleweed blows around.
You join with zero followers and have no way of importing any, except through building a following. Once you've been there a while you start to get invitations that you can extend to friends - I now have two invitations.
It's very hard to find people to follow. There's a Discover button, but the people all seem to be either developers or AI accounts offering endless cat pictures.
I tried a few tricks to find people to follow. Typing "UK" into the search bar doesn't bring up much, only accounts, and there aren't many with UK in their handle. I then looked at some of the followers of the Bluesky handles and found a few with very large followings, as the US has had beta testers for some time. But they all seem quite young and mostly American.
I've tweeted a handful of times and got 3 likes for a post mentioning my trip to the ballet last weekend. I now have 13 followers. I'll certainly stick around because it can only get better. There are no hash tags yet, or trending topics. It's cool to be at the beginning of something, as I always felt I was too late to the blogging and IG parties.
Threads from Meta
Before I was invited onto Bluesky, I joined the clamour on the launch day of Meta's Threads to see what all the fuss was all about. This is Meta's answer to Twitter. Well, I certainly didn't have a problem getting followers. For days I kept getting notifications that people on IG had accepted my invitation to follow them, including big brands who don't actually follow me there (I follow them).
Threads, for the first few days that I was a member, was like a big party full of stone cold sober strangers. It was as if no-one knew the expected behaviour. The people imported from IG were not familiar with Twitter, and why should they be? Instagram's function is different: people post pictures and videos of their lives. Twitter, or X, is for debate and views.
I tried a couple of conversational gambits - which books are you reading kind of thing. Again, there were no hash tags or trending topics: it was a giant and impossible to navigate smorgasbord of uncurated chaos.
As I'm not the biggest fan of Meta, and view them as more corrosive and damaging to society than even Elon Musk, I stopped looking at Threads. (Btw, if you try to delete your account you lose your Instagam account too).
It seems a lot of people have already given up on Threads. According to Similarweb, there were 49 million users in week one. This dropped to 23.6 million near the start of week two. Time spent on the site has fallen to six minutes from 21.
What's your view on what's happened to Twitter and its new rivals? Or have you always been oblivious and hope to remain so? Do let us know in the comments.
TODAY'S OUTFIT DETAILS
Teal is the colour of the month at the Kettlewell Colour Club. I like this colour very much but don't have too much in it. It looks surprisingly good with pink. I'm wearing Kettlewell's true teal essential V with coral crops, Roman, and gold wedges, Vionic (old). For cooler days adding a Kettlewell Cate jacket in flamingo pink creates a "suit."
I'm back tomorrow with the Tell Us About crew. This month we're responding to Suzy's prompt, Imagination.
Sharing this post with: Weekday Wear at Away from the Blue, #AnythingGoes at My Random Musings, Hello Monday at Sunshine and Books, Tell it to Me Tuesday at Perfectly Imperfect, Rena at Fine Whatever, Turning Heads Tuesday at Elegantly Dressed and Stylish, Confident Twosday at I Do Declaire, Style with a Smile at Stylesplash, Talent Sharing Tuesdays at Scribbling Boomer, Curated by Jennifer (Wednesdays), Chic & Stylish at Mummabstylish, #SpreadTheKindness and #Linkup on the Edge at Shelbee on the Edge, Thursday Fashion Files at Doused in Pink, #Neverendingstyle at The Grey Brunette, Fancy Friday at Nancy's Fashion Style, Traffic Jam Weekend at Marsha in the Middle Senior Salon Pitstop at Esme Salon Crafty Creators at Life as a Leo Wife, Unlimited Link Party at Grammy's Grid
Disclosure: Is Mutton is optimised for the best reading experience so there are no ads or affiliate links. Where I have linked to retailers, this is for your convenience. Clicks are not monetized.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY #WOWONWEDNESDAY !
JOIN THIS WEEK'S LINK-UP
Last Week's Favourites
Most Clicked Non Fashion/Beauty Pick
I just recently ,,discovered,, Twitter. And find it rather amusing. A lot of humor out there.
ReplyDeleteI use X and have just started on Threads, never heard of Bluesky though. Thanks for sharing your views hun xx Jacqui
ReplyDelete