Internet: Musk: Twitter successor X gets voice and video calls

2023-08-31 10:35:09

Internet Musk: Twitter successor X gets voice and video calls

With voice and video calling, Musk would be entering a market where there are many competitors and entrenched user preferences. photo

© Susan Walsh/AP/dpa

Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, the platform’s advertising revenue has declined. Now the billionaire is betting on new features. Will the former short message service become an “app for everything”?

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 in with his plan to transform Twitter, which he bought for around $44 billion, into X, an “app for everything”. 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 that you don’t know personally – and online criminals have recently been known to try again to contact users with fake profiles under the guise of well-known brands such as airlines.

dpa