Rockin' Robin

The internet isn’t short of platforms upon which to share things. Ideas, opinions, news, photos; the web is basically awash with ways to let people know how you’re feeling about something. One, which has carved out its own niche in this sea of options, is Twitter, which challenged us to condense what we had to say into 140 characters. It’s this platform of tweets and retweets which is making headlines recently for having attracted the interest of the famously deep pocketed Elon Musk. Why would anyone wish to shell out the tens of billions of dollars required to secure a company like Twitter, though?

First let’s cover a brief history of our favorite social media outlet which shares its name with a bird noise. Twittr, as it was known back then was actually launched in 2006 as a side project to a failing podcast platform named Odeo. The idea came from SMS or text messages at the time being limited to 140 characters in length and no real ability to distribute them amongst a group of friends. Eventually, Twittr became Twitter and the message limit became a much roomier 280 characters. In 2013 and after several feature updates broadening what you were able to post to include photos and other media, the company went public with a valuation at just over $31 billion. Ka-ching!

Twitter, as with any form of social media really, hasn’t been without its challenges over the years. Bans, finding ways to curb the spread of misinformation and its ability to be used as a platform for hate speech have caused turmoil for its stakeholders. It’s also not seeing the growth its competitors are, Facebook and TikTok both eclipsing it for active users. Twitter’s allure lies in its simplicity however. Amongst the complexity of other platforms, it has a fairly simple interface and allows you in near-real-time to put whatever thought falls out of your head into a brief message for the world to see.

What makes this an appealing prospect for purchase though? Well Mr. Musk himself is claiming that its value to him isn’t an economical one, rather he’d like to make more transparent the algorithms and transform it into a truly open platform for free speech. He’s mentioned some of the changes he’d make if successful, telling tales of a Twitter being less of a tool for performing witch hunts than it is today. For me that only rings halfway true at best. While tweets don’t put the “R” in ROI like Facebooking does, it does harbor a soft power outside of the financial. Musk has 80 million followers on there, that’s a lot of subtle nudges toward any idea which might benefit you in the longer term.

Another perspective here does actually pertain to the dollar figures involved. The current bid for the company stands at $43 billion, which Elon himself will only technically be fronting half of; the rest coming from other, now secured, sources. This represents a fraction of his estimated $220 billion net worth, so in a rather bizarre way when we’re talking about numbers this large - it could be seen as good value. The rather lofty answer perhaps to the question of valuing free speech. Should Musk’s considerable social clout drive more users to the service post-purchase, the financial concerns may cease to exist at all.

As it stands today when writing this article, no deal has been reached even though the funds are ready to go in the Musk camp. Personally and with no real horse in this race, I’m curious as to what a “new” Twitter might look like and offer above its, for now, larger counterparts.