Over the previous week or so, each Elon and X CEO Linda Yaccarino have supplied imprecise statements on sure parts, which has led to media hypothesis, a few of it incorrect, or criticism the place it might be unwarranted.

Like, for instance, Elon alluding to X’s plan to cost customers “a small month-to-month cost” to entry X, with the intention to fight bots. That sparked widespread stories that X will quickly cost all customers, which isn’t precisely what Musk mentioned, however to ensure that his bot-battling plan to be efficient, he would successfully want the overwhelming majority of X customers to pay.

So he didn’t say it, however he form of did, whereas Musk has additionally hinted at this risk up to now.

An official comms group may have clarified this right away, however with a press electronic mail that provides you an automated “We’ll get again to you quickly” response, media shops are left to take a position, which logically sparked a flood of “X is planning to cost all customers” headlines.

Yaccarino’s weird Code Convention interview this week, in the meantime, left folks with a heap of questions, which Yaccarino appeared unwilling, or not sure learn how to reply. 

What number of each day lively customers does X have? What number of month-to-month customers? Is hate speech declining? All of those are numbers that you’d assume Yaccarino would have available, whereas the query of whether or not X is definitely planning to cost all customers additionally went unanswered, with Yaccarino seemingly not sure what Musk had introduced on this.

Which suggests, once more, that it’s at the very least been mentioned, however as a substitute of offering any readability or official stance, X was criticized as soon as once more, with Yaccarino herself now within the firing line for seemingly being, as famous within the interview, “CEO in title solely”.

As an alternative, Yaccarino randomly posted some official stats and notes on X over the next days.

Which, in itself, additional confused issues, as a result of this stat straight contradicts what Musk introduced the earlier week, when he mentioned X is seeing 200 million posts per day.

For readability, Musk mentioned that:  

“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.”

Elon did observe that the quantity he shared was minus re-posts. However does that imply that there are 300 million re-posts per day? Looks as if rather a lot, however perhaps that’s appropriate. 

We don’t know, in fact, as a result of we don’t have anybody to ask, so once more, it’s left to hypothesis, and sometimes criticism, or at least, skepticism round X’s strategy.

Which gave the impression to be a part of what irked Yaccarino in her interview, that the media was targeted on the previous, that it was hyper-focused on metrics, whereas lacking the larger image that X is treading fully new floor, and is making superb progress on this radical new path.

Besides, it’s not.

X has ambitions to change into an entire new platform, which facilitates extra video engagement, funds in-stream, purchasing, banking, and extra. That’s Elon’s “every part app” plan, however to this point, virtually all the improvements that X has provide you with, which Yaccarino was so eager to spotlight, have really been previous tasks that the earlier Twitter group had developed, and that the remaining X crew has merely pushed out, clearing its previous growth shelf.

Group Notes has been in growth since 2021, Twitter has had live-streaming in-app since 2016, Twitter Blue was already being offered as a subscription package deal, they simply added verification into the combination, then modified the title. 

By way of precise, start-to-finish, large-scale updates to the app, the X group hasn’t achieved a lot in any respect. Which is smart, on condition that they’re now working with a a lot, a lot smaller dev group, which can be arising in opposition to code variations and mismatches which can be making such updates more and more tough. 

It’s very exhausting, for instance, for the X group to do away with all of the hen references within the app, which it might like to do to compete its X re-brand. It’s very tough for X to roll out large-scale video streaming updates, as a result of it always must replace a number of layers of code, on a number of servers. 

It is smart that that is tough to navigate, and on this respect, the X group is unquestionably making progress. However it’s not innovating at some astronomical price, at the very least from a customers’ perspective. The UI is just about the identical, the in-app expertise is identical as at all times. Yaccarino can’t actually expect showers of reward for the group’s progress, that are largely inside at this stage.

However once more, this might all be clarified by an official comms group that would talk X’s progress. Moderately than have Yaccarino placed on the spot, the comms group would have official stances in place, utilization stats, progress updates, all of this info can be recognized, and ideally certified with information, earlier than Musk or Yaccarino is put earlier than the media.

Perhaps that’s not doable, given Musk’s off-the-cuff nature. Perhaps that’s simply not the way in which Musk operates, as per his long-held aversion to promoting. 

It is also that that is a part of the plan, that every one of that is the media recreation in itself, with every speculated replace driving extra media protection.

If that’s the plan, it’s positively working, as X continues to be sparking a lot media consideration (together with this very submit). However it additionally appears damaging, the truth that the CEO and proprietor are seemingly at odds on sure parts, that its person numbers stay in query, that it received’t share its personal official stories on hate speech. 

If X has the info, why not share it, and silence the media debate? If X goes so properly, why not again that up with the numbers on every aspect? 

Up to now, Musk has alluded to this being a component of his strategy, that the media frenzy, good or unhealthy, is definitely good for enterprise.

Perhaps that’s it, and it doesn’t want a comms division. However it does appear to be plenty of the confusion across the app may simply be addressed. The truth that it’s not means that the precise numbers are not so good as X retains saying.