Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that
shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neurolink.
I'm your host, Will Walden. How is Tik Tok's uncertain
future in the United States fueling competition in social
media right now? Also, what makes Blue Skies
decentralized model a unique approach in video?
And can X and Blue Sky truly attract Tik Tok's user base by
mimicking its short form video format?
Now X has unveiled a new vertical video feed added to
their X United States app. It's accessible via a dedicated
video tab in the bottom navigation bar and it's very
similar to TikTok in some ways. There's a continuous scroll
through short form videos similar also to YouTube and
Instagram and all the other short form TikTok style video
platforms out there right now, and it integrates into Axis
video first multimedia approach. They've had live video for a
while. They used to have live video a
long time ago too. When I was doing my Space news
pod channel on YouTube, I specifically went over to
Twitter when it was Twitter to do their live video streaming.
You couldn't make any money on it.
It wasn't like it is now where it's all monetized.
You could get things called stars, I believe, and you could
earn stars, which then turned into something which we didn't
know what it was, but it was kind of like magical fairy dust.
Nobody really got any money from it, but you could become popular
if you did a bunch of live stuff on Twitter at that point.
But you know, because it was all there's always video is called
Periscope back then, but now short form video has taken over.
TikTok is in the dumps because of the new administration and
because of the Supreme Court. But are they going to come back?
Well, Apple's App Store has kicked them off.
We don't think they're going to go back in the App Store because
why would they risk it? Also, Android App Store out of
there, too. There's huge, huge penalties if
you break the law. And Apple and Google would both.
The Google Play Store would both see huge fines for this.
So the these new additions to X aim to attract Tik Tok's user
base during its period of uncertainty.
So even if they could capture some of that millions of
followers, that's a plus for X right now.
But here's another thing. Blue Sky, the kind of direct
competitor to X Basically it's it was what Twitter used to be.
Blue Sky now features a vertical video feed under the Explore
tab. Users can swipe through training
videos, pin feeds to their home screen, or create targeted feeds
based on specific hashtags. So when you do that, you don't
have to worry about an algorithm.
Videos are capped at 59 seconds, so under one minute.
And it's built on Blue Skies decentralized AET protocol
enabling developer customization.
It's customizable and user driver driven video experience
tailored to individual preferences as opposed to them
feeding you a bunch of stuff like TikTok used to do.
Now TikTok faces on scrutiny or scrutiny now and uncertainty in
the United States over data security concerns and ties to
its Chinese parent company. Excuse me, it's kind of late
here. So if I stumble a little bit,
that's why Chinese parent company Byte Dance.
US ban narrowly avoided in the past, but future restrictions
remain possible in the coming months.
You know, platforms like X and Blue Sky are responding to Tik
Tok's ban by basically mimicking TikTok features that other
people might want to use. If you don't think you'll ever
be. I mean, the, the App Store is
you can't download the apps anymore.
You can't download TikTok anymore and if X can get some of
that user base because they do something very similar to
TikTok, it's not the same. It won't feel the same.
And Blue skies doesn't feel the same either.
But it is vertical short form video, so some people might move
over. Social media giants accelerating
their rollout of short form video features increases
competition. It's not just TikTok against
Instagram anymore YouTube Shorts jumped in X, of course, a little
bit late in the blue sky, a little bit late too.
But X and blue sky positioning themselves as alternatives for
TikTok users that haven't migrated over to YouTube Shorts
at this point. But YouTube Shorts is kind of
like the graveyard for TikTok videos.
So the short perform video tools becoming central to platform
development is key for people to move to these platforms.
Cap cut is huge on TikTok. What does X offer?
They don't offer anything like that.
Now that does Blue Sky YouTube has the YouTube app, which you
can record in and you know, they don't have anything like cap cut
though. So you can record and do some
very simple editing. But X and Blue Sky don't have
anything compared to what TikTok has.
Companies adapting to the potential absence of a major
player like TikTok are going to see a short burst in new users
when users cannot download TikTok, So we'll see how that
works out for them. Blue Sky is built on the AT
protocol. The AT protocol, which allows
developers to create custom video and content feeds.
Independent tools like Grey's Social and Skyfeed are being
developed to enhance video capabilities.
So not only is this open, unlike Elon Musk's X, which we all
love, but you can have independent tools attached
directly to an app that you use. You don't have to use Blue Sky
because it's on the app protocol.
There's more analytics, blending of text and video on Blue Sky
and personalized user experiences.
You can personalize everything on Blue Sky.
So Speaking of decentralization, it fosters innovation and
diverse use cases now. So what were we talking about
before? The developers can develop on
top of the platform, unlike X where you can't because it's
owned by Elon Musk. It's a closed garden.
You know, it's kind of a kind of a mood point, but also a little
bit funny is that Elon Musk is a bastion for free speech and it
oh, so I think of software as speech.
I'm a web developer by trade. Check out my website,
willwalden.com if you need any help or any work done.
And also, I believe in open source, I believe in open source
software. And I'm sure Twitter and X have
used parts of open source software.
I believe language is code and code is language.
So I don't understand why Elon Musk hasn't opened up X to, I
mean, there there's an API, but he charges for it.
It costs money. So that's not free speech in my,
in my own opinion, if you have to charge for something that's
not free anymore. So think about that.
So is Blue Sky doing free speech better than X?
Just think about it for a second.
I don't know. I don't know.
It's a, it's an interesting topic to think about though.
So integration of vertical video on X though, it's part of the
larger multimedia ecosystem that Elon is building.
So he's building an everything app.
It's similar to Facebook in many regards.
Facebook has Reels, Facebook has a news feed, Facebook has
favorites, Facebook has live. They've had it for a while.
They had payment integrations. And Elon Musk, a lot of people
are thinking that he's just copying Zuck, you know, and
that's, that's an opinion from some people because Facebook
kind of has everything already. And Elon is trying to make
something that's similar to Facebook.
And he says it's going to be more than that where you can
hail an Uber or hail a Tesla, things like that, which is going
to be very cool when it does happen.
So then let's go back to the integration of this vertical
video. And I'm not a Elon heater, by
the way. I love, I love the the companies
that he's built. So I'm just putting some points
about the apps and the way that things are structured just so we
can think about this together. It's seamless navigation though
on the X app bottom bar, super easy.
Tap it real quick. I don't like things in the top
bar. I don't know about you or like
on a sidebar or anything like that in your apps.
Put it at the bottom where my thumbs already at because if I
have to reach over, I have a kind of, I have a bigger phone
with iPhone Pro Max and it's like kind of a big phone.
So if I have to reach like up, the phone gets a little floppy
in my hand. So at the bottom is perfect spot
for that. It's focused on simplicity.
The the interface is very simple.
So it's really easy to pick up and use.
And it's going to be a comprehensive content platform
in the future. Because of vertical video, we
had horizontal video. You can upload as long a video
as you want to as long as you pay for it.
So think about that too. If you have to pay to speak
freely through video on a platform, is that still free
speech platform? I just like to think about these
things sometimes I like to think about them, but I want you to
think about them too. So that's why I bring them up.
It's not about hate, not I'm not hating on anybody.
But so far, they both had a positive reaction.
Many users appreciate the added functionality and the TikTok
like experience on X Suggestions for improvement from a bunch of
users. Extended video length limits and
editing features. That's one of the big ones.
The editing features, TikTok has a lot of those which these other
apps don't have yet. But this is version A1.
So in the near future, probably going to get some extended video
lengths maybe and some TikTok like editing features as well.
So let me know if you've used these app in the comments on
whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now.
I'd like to hear what you think about it.
I'm a big proponent of XI love free speech.
I think it's a great thing. I love short form video.
You'll find me some mornings when I wake up earlier than the
wife. Then I'm just scrolling through
Tiktok or skipping through some YouTube Shorts and you'll hear
me talk about them here and there.
So I'm a huge proponent of short form video and I can't wait to
dig into all the short form video that I can find on X and
also Blue Sky and check out our Discord.
If you want some other information, we can continue
this conversation over there and there's a link in the show notes
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