X is a News App?
According to Musk (and Apple), it is.
But here's the twist: this isn’t exactly breaking news (!). Back in 2016, Twitter quietly rebranded itself as a news app, according to Apple’s app classification. At that time, Twitter was facing a growth slump. While Facebook skyrocketed from 300 million to 1.5 billion users, Twitter lagged, crawling from 240 million to 300 million. It was clear that Twitter needed a new strategy, and reclassifying itself as a news app seemed like the move.
In 2016, the idea of Twitter as a news app made more sense than today. It was the go-to platform for breaking news, with a fast, chronological feed, effective hashtag and keyword search, and a strong presence of journalists and media outlets. Reclassifying itself likely helped boost its standing in the App Store and reposition the platform in the users' eyes.
Social media, news, everything app!
When we think of news apps, we typically picture news aggregators, RSS readers, or standalone apps from media outlets. Personally, I’ve relied on Flipboard for curation, switched to Feedly after Google Reader’s demise, and I still keep a few media apps like BBC and WSJ handy. (And I’ll probably never from Artifacts shut down!)
But I’d forgotten entirely about Twitter’s “news app” rebranding—until Elon Musk recently tweeted (xed?) that X, formerly known as Twitter, is now the number one news app in 140 countries.
X, a news app? Isn’t X supposed to be the everything app? That was Musk’s big vision behind the rebrand, after all.
Where have all the journalists gone
X today looks vastly different from the Twitter we once knew. Many journalists and news organizations have left the platform, the once-coveted blue verification badges are now up for sale, and headlines on article links were even removed at one point. Sure, you can still get your news on X—plenty of people still do—but what kind of news is it?
Meanwhile, Musk loves to push the idea that X is distinct from legacy media. He even encouraged “people around the world to publish news, articles, and videos in real-time!”
But if X’s users are journalists, and X is a news app… maybe, just maybe, X should be regulated like traditional media? I’m sure the British government wouldn’t mind!