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Twitter charges for Tweetdeck – and faces competition from Facebook
Twitter boss Elon Musk is currently under criticism
© AFP
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook group plans to launch a Twitter competitor later this week. Just right, some think, because Elon Musk recently annoyed many of his Twitter users by shutting down Tweetdeck.
At the weekend there were for many Twitter users in shock. Elon Musk has pulled out all the stops to still generate revenue for his company and in an unprecedented move has imposed restrictions on the viewing of tweets.
According to this, paying subscription customers should be able to read up to 10,000 tweets per day and users without a subscription up to 1000 posts. Musk explained the move by saying that there were too many attempts to skim large amounts of data from Twitter.
The announcement was followed by problems at Tweetdeck, where, among other things, the display of lists was disrupted. Recently, tweets could only be displayed without advertising and with automatic updates via Tweetdeck. It has been speculated for years that the frequent user software could become chargeable – even long before Musk took over the billions in autumn 2022. Now Musk is probably implementing this plan. The company’s Twitter account announced Monday night that it had launched a new version of Tweetdeck – which will be available in 30 days only to users who are “Twitter Blue” subscribers. It was not explained whether this also applies to the previous Tweetdeck version.
Twitter gets competitors from the Facebook group: The duel Musk vs. Zuckerberg goes into the next round
The technology blog “The Verge” provided an explanation for the recent problems with Tweetdeck, citing software developers: Twitter had cut interfaces through which the program had previously accessed the platform.
The excitement with which the launch of Twitter’s competitor from Facebook group Meta is now all the greater. This should start in a few days. The application called Threads was announced for Thursday in Apple’s US App Store.
While there are several smaller Twitter competitors, Mark Zuckerberg’s meta is considered a particularly strong rival. The group knows how to operate large online platforms and, unlike the longtime top dog Twitter in the Musk era, has no money problems.
A starting advantage could also be the basis of more than a billion users who are already linked: The Threads app is connected to Meta’s popular photo and video app Instagram. With other Twitter rivals such as Mastodon, Bluesky and T2, such user networks that have grown over the years have to be re-established.
This sets the course for a business duel between Musk and Zuckerberg, after the two billionaires had already agreed to an exhibition match in the ring in June.
The “New York Times” reported at the weekend that such a fight is actually being prepared – but it is still unclear whether it will actually take place. Zuckerberg, 39, trains with martial arts trainers and is visibly fitter than 52-year-old tech billionaire Musk.