Linda Yaccarino is leaving X

X has been nothing short of an exercise in brand destruction. However, despite all the drama, it still stands, it still exists, and it remains relevant.

More and more I think Musk managed to his take over of Twitter pretty successfully. X still isn't as strong a brand as Twitter where, but it's doing okay. A lot of the users who X need to stay on the platform, journalists and politicians, are still there.

The only issue is that Musk vastly overpaid for Twitter, but if he plans to keep it and use it for his political ambitions, that might not matter. Also remember that while many agree that $44B was a bit much, most did still put Twitter at 10s of billions, not the $500M I think you could justify.

The firings, which was going to tank Twitter also turned out reasonably well. Turns out they didn't need all those people.

And btw, how many features have been brought live since Musk's takeover? If I'm not wrong, at least: long tweets, paid subscriptions, community notes, native video (?), grok... Anything else? Seems quite a lot after years of stagnation.

Long tweets: 2017 (https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/07/twitter-officially-expands...)

Subscriptions: 2021 (https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-launches-subscrip...)

Community Notes: 2021 (https://blog.x.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/introducing-bir...)

Native video: 2012-2015 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service) / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periscope_(service) / https://www.videonuze.com/article/twitter-unveils-30-second-...)

Musk buys Twitter: late 2022.

That leaves… Grok.

Chronological feed by default with a setting that actually sticks, private favorites, new media gallery, "E2E" messages.

(side note: Birdwatch was a way better name than Community Notes)