2023-08-31 10:41:28
X
Musk relies more on the subscription business on the online platform.
(Photo: dpa)
San Francisco tech billionaire Elon Musk wants to introduce voice and video calls to his online platform X (formerly Twitter). The feature will be available on iPhones and Android phones, as well as PCs and Apple’s Mac computers, Musk announced on Thursday. You will not have to provide a phone number. X is like a “global address book,” Musk wrote.
The announcement fits his plan to transform Twitter, which he bought for around $44 billion, into X, an “everything app”. Such universal apps are particularly popular in China, where people use WeChat to process all sorts of tasks, including money transactions.
With voice and video calling, Musk would be entering a market where there are many competitors and entrenched user preferences. There is audio and video telephony with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and on all Apple devices via the in-house service Facetime.
Musk initially did not provide any information on how quickly the function should be available and whether it would involve additional costs. Since the takeover in October, advertising revenues have only been half as high. Musk is therefore focusing more on the subscription business.
It is also unclear how protection against spam calls, for example, is to be regulated. At X, you tend to follow a lot of people, companies and organizations you don’t know personally – and online criminals have recently been reported to try again to contact users with fake profiles under the guise of well-known brands such as airlines.
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