Musk has repeatedly acknowledged that X continues to achieve all-time highs in “gadget person seconds”, a imprecise denominator which isn’t similar to different apps (as they don’t share this information), whereas Musk has additionally stated that X’s lively customers are effectively up on what they had been below Twitter, now sitting on 253 million each day actives (up from 238m in Twitter’s final efficiency report previous to the acquisition), and 540 million month-to-month customers.

Musk reported one other improve in X’s month-to-month utilization once more in his dialogue Monday, whereas additionally highlighting an extra fascinating knowledge level that’s worthy of observe.

As per Musk:  

“There are 500 million, um, 550 million month-to-month customers, now going to perhaps 600 million month-to-month customers, and any given day there’s on the order of 100 to 200 million posts to the system.”

100 million to 200 million posts is lots, for certain, but when that’s correct, that truly signifies that individuals are posting lots much less to X than they used on Twitter.

Again in 2013, Twitter reported that it noticed, on common, 500 million posts per day, a quantity that it’s repeatedly used as a benchmark for its efficiency. X administration even referred to that very same determine in March this 12 months, as a part of a weblog put up about its suggestion algorithm:

“Twitter goals to ship you one of the best of what’s occurring on the earth proper now. This requires a suggestion algorithm to distill the roughly 500 million Tweets posted each day right down to a handful of high Tweets that finally present up in your gadget’s For You timeline.” 

200 million, or 100 million posts, is lots much less X exercise, a decline of, doubtlessly, some 400%.

Musk did additionally say that he’s excluding re-posts from this determine, which may very well be a think about the entire calculation, whereas X has additionally, reportedly, rid the platform of loads of bots, one other potential exercise hit.

Nevertheless it does look like a giant variance.

Which, really, would possibly make some sense, once you additionally take into account the broader social media utilization pattern away from public posting. Nevertheless it additionally signifies that X is more and more reliant on a small variety of its most lively customers, whom it must hold posting, to be able to hold folks coming again.

Again in 2021, Pew Analysis revealed a research which confirmed that the highest 25% of lively Twitter customers within the U.S. produce round 97% of all tweets available in the market.

Twitter had round 95 million U.S. customers, which might imply that the platform’s core lively person cohort is simply round 24 million folks within the area. So whereas Twitter could have had 238 million whole customers, solely a fraction of them had been really posting, and if these new figures that Musk’s shared are right, there might now be lots fewer folks bothering to put up in any respect.

That’s possible why its X Premium push has failed to realize traction, as a result of all the advantages of this system, like additional attain, recognition, even put up enhancing, are for those that really put up to the app. Which is now a tiny quantity.

It additionally means that X’s “gadget person seconds” stat may very well be deceptive, when it comes to total engagement. It wouldn’t shock me in any respect if a smaller group of customers is spending much more time within the app because of the most recent modifications below Elon. However with far fewer posts, it appears unlikely that, total, extra individuals are spending extra time on X.

The numbers might additionally level to a possibility for a competitor, on condition that reaching aggressive scale is much less difficult than the top-line utilization stats could recommend.

As famous, it may be that Twitter was counting re-tweets in its numbers, and perhaps, with bot exercise factored in, 200 million posts per day is definitely extra comparable than it appears.

Nevertheless it’s a giant variance, which is fascinating to notice in broader context.