This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.
18.10.2023 - 18:42 / pcgamer.com / Elon Musk / New
Twitter owner Elon Musk has come up with a bold new plan to rid the platform of bots and attract legitimate new users: Charging new subscribers $1 per year for access.
The "Not a Bot" program, as it's known, is now in testing in New Zealand and the Philippines, where all new accounts will have to take two steps in order to access the platform: Verify their phone number, and then sign up on a subscription plan.
The «Premium» package, with its once-coveted, now-embarrassing blue check, is still available at a rate of $8 per month. But Twitter is also now testing a new, effectively mandatory tier going for $1 (or local equivalent) per year, which will enable users to «post content, like posts, reply, repost and quote other accounts' posts, [and] bookmark posts.» Those who opt out of paying will be limited to «read only» activities: Reading posts, watching videos, and following other accounts.
«This new program aims to defend against bots and spammers who attempt to manipulate the platform and disrupt the experience of other [Twitter] users,» the announcement states. «We look forward to sharing more about the results soon.»
I can sort of see where someone who's completely out of ideas might cook up a scheme like this to combat bots: Attaching a nominal fee (and more importantly, I think, the process of paying it) to new account creation is, superficially at least, a semi-valid anti-spam measure. But $1 per year is such a tiny amount that I have to wonder how much real impact it will have. 100 bucks for 100 accounts strikes me as a reasonable price to pay to be able to fire off a wave of tweets about the latest crypto scam.
The bigger issue, though, is the cost/benefit analysis that comes into play, particularly for casual users. Simply put, it's a headache. Are people really going to deal with the hassle, minor though it may be, of signing up for any kind of subscription fee for a service that used to be free—and especially one that's become an infamous crap-swamp over the past year? Twitter's usefulness as a channel for sharing information during times of crisis has effectively evaporated under Musk's tenure: At this point it's almost impossible to separate truth and fact from endless waves of spam, nonsense, and active disinformation.
And even if committed users of Twitter see this new fee as an anti-bot effort, those who are not—which is to say, the masses that Twitter needs to attract in order to return it to a state of growth and nominal value—I think are more likely to view it, subconsciously at least, as a value statement. And anything that goes for $1 per year, folks, is not worth one red cent.
The obvious looming question is whether this program will eventually be expanded to Twitter's existing
This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.
Elon Musk's venture into the realm of artificial intelligence has taken a curious turn with the recent unveiling of his latest AI creation, Grok chatbot. While the name may raise eyebrows, it's not entirely unexpected given Musk's penchant for unconventional names, as evinced by his children's unique names. However, there's a deeper meaning behind Grok, and it's intimately tied to Musk's enduring fascination with Mars - the Red Planet.
After ChatGPT stole the AI thunder initially, followed by tools from Google, Microsoft, and others, billionaire Elon Musk, who was initially involved with OpenAI, has rolled out his own artificial intelligence "system" that is available to a limited audience only. Musk's xAI is looking to cover up all the space in the tech world and do that rapidly as it is playing catch up with the rest of the tech world. And for that, he has now unveiled xAI's Grok system. However, even though he was involved in the development of ChatGPT, there is a lot of catching up to do, especially as content creators are cracking down on these AI bots scraping their data. Musk himself has objected to other bots scraping X data.
X (formerly Twitter) is going through a transformative period. Recently, Elon Musk, the owner of the platform, revealed his plans to turn it into an ‘everything app'. The company is also releasing new features at a break-neck pace. Some of these features are also exclusive to the X Premium members, who pay a monthly subscription fee, to improve its revenue. Now, a new report has highlighted that X is also selling off old user handles to others at a massive price tag of $50000 and up. This revelation has emerged after some reports mentioned that X may actually start a marketplace where users can sell their handles to other users, and the platform takes a cut.
We recently found out about X owner Elon Musk's plans to turn the social media platform into an “everything app”, after his speech from the all-hands meeting with the employees was leaked. He talked a lot about Communities, highlighting that it is growing at a rapid pace. Perhaps to double down on that growth, X will soon get another new feature in Communities. This new feature, pinned hashtag, will allow group admins to pin certain hashtags at the top and allow users to follow a certain topic within the group.
On the first day of November, global-scale development on artificial intelligence was seen. At the UK AI Summit, global leaders from 28 different countries came together and committed to evaluating AI-related dangers together. In other news, billionaire Elon Musk, who is also at the AI Summit, reiterated his previous statement and called AI a risk. This and more in today's AI roundup. Let us take a closer look.
It’s finally November and, with Black Friday approaching at a rapid pace, it’s no surprise that we’re already seeing some good deals popping up here and there. This year’s Black Friday officially kicks off on November 24 and will be the perfect opportunity to score some great Black Friday gaming deals.
Twitter was transformed into X earlier this year, and while the change was essentially a logo, name, and domain shift, company owner Elon Musk has much grander plans for his platform. From a simple messaging platform, in his own words, Musk wants to turn X into an ‘everything app', similar to China's WeChat, where people can do a bunch of different things outside of typical social media activities on the app itself. This can include even checking your bank account balance, applying for a job, watching a live stream, shopping for clothes, and even finding a date. Even if it sounds ridiculous, Musk is pretty serious about it and mentioned it all during the company's first all-hands employee meeting.
X (formerly Twitter) is going to get quite a few banking and finance features in 2024, and they will include payment-related features too. That is the intent Elon Musk has expressed often. As such, those who are wondering about the connection between financial services and social media should not be surprised, as company owner Musk has said that he plans to turn X into an “everything app”, much like China's WeChat and Alipay. But an everything app does not just have payments, it is also required to have a lot of other services as well. So, what exactly is Musk planning to bring to X? Let us take a look.
Rishi Sunak plans to hold a live-streamed conversation with Elon Musk after his AI summit wraps up Thursday, lending some star power to an event that the British prime minister hopes could shape regulation of the emerging technology.
Last night, X (formerly Twitter) finally launched two more subscription tiers to the paid version of its platform, known as the X Premium subscription. The Elon Musk-owned social media platform now has a Basic, Premium, and Premium Plus tier for those who want to access features such as editing a post, posting longer posts, and background video playing. Every tier unlocks some tier-specific benefits, and the most expensive plan, Premium Plus, unlocks all the features, and on top of that removes all ads and gives the user the “largest boost for your replies”. Let us take a look at the tiers, their price, and what they offer.
The option to view Twitter/X without ads is finally here, but it’ll cost you $16 per month.