X and Bluesky Launch Vertical Video Feeds
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla, X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. I'm your host, Will Walden. How is TikTok's uncertain future in the United States fueling competition in social media right now? Also, what makes Blue Sky's decentralized model a unique approach in video and

And can X and Blue Sky truly attract TikTok's user base by mimicking its short form video format? Now, X has unveiled a new vertical video feed add-in to their X United States app. It's accessible via a dedicated video tab in the bottom navigation bar. And it's very similar to TikTok in some ways.

There's a continuous scroll through short form videos similar also to YouTube and Instagram and all the other short form TikTok style video platforms out there right now. And it integrates into Axe's video first multimedia approach. They've had live video for a while. They used to have live video a long time ago too.

When I was doing my Space News Pod channel on YouTube, I specifically went over to Twitter. When it was Twitter to do their live video streaming, you couldn't make any money on it. It wasn't like it is now where it's all monetized. You could get things called stars, I believe.

and you could earn stars which then turned into something which we didn't know what it was but it was kind of like magical fairy dust nobody really got any money from it but you could become popular if you did a bunch of live stuff on twitter at that point but you know because it was all there was always video it's called periscope back then but now short form video has taken over tick tock is in the dumps because of the new administration and because of the supreme court but

Are they going to come back? Well, Apple's app store has kicked them off. We don't think they're going to go back on the app store because why would they risk it? Also Android app store out of there too. There's huge, huge penalties if you break the law and Apple and Google would both, the Google play store would both see huge fines for this.

So these new additions to X aim to attract TikTok's user base during its period of uncertainty. So even if they could capture some of that millions of followers, that's a plus for X right now. But here's another thing. Blue Sky, the kind of direct competitor to X, especially it was what Twitter used to be. Blue Sky,

now features a vertical video feed under the Explore tab. Users can swipe through trending videos, pin feeds to their home screen, or create targeted feeds based on specific hashtags. So when you do that, you don't have to worry about an algorithm. Videos are capped at 59 seconds, so under one minute, and it's built on Blue Sky's decentralized AT protocol enabling developer customization.

It's customizable and user driver driven video experience tailored to individual preferences as opposed to them feeding you a bunch of stuff like TikTok used to do. Now TikTok faces scrutiny now and uncertainty in the United States over data security concerns and ties to its Chinese parent company. Excuse me, it's kind of late here. So if I stumble a little bit, that's why. Chinese parent company ByteDance.

U.S. ban narrowly avoided in the past, but future restrictions remain possible in the coming months. You know, platforms like X and Blue Sky are responding to TikTok's ban by basically mimicking TikTok features that other people might want to use. If you don't think you'll ever be, I mean, the app stores, you can't download the apps anymore. You can't download TikTok anymore.

And if X can get some of that user base because they do something very similar to TikTok, it's not the same. It won't feel the same. And Blue Skies doesn't feel the same either. But it is vertical short form video. So some people might move over. Social media giants accelerating their rollout of short form video features increases competition.

It's not just TikTok against Instagram anymore. YouTube Shorts jumped in. X, of course, a little bit late. And Blue Sky, a little bit late too. But X and Blue Sky positioning themselves as alternatives for TikTok users that haven't migrated over to YouTube Shorts at this point. But YouTube Shorts is kind of like

the graveyard for TikTok videos. So the short form video tools becoming central to platform development is key for people to move to these platforms. CapCut is huge on TikTok. What does X offer? They don't offer anything like that. Neither does Blue Sky. YouTube has the YouTube app, which you can record in. And, you know, they don't have anything like CapCut, though. So you can record and do some very...

Simple editing, but X and Blue Sky don't have anything compared to what TikTok has. Companies adapting to the potential absence of a major player like TikTok are going to see a short burst in new users when users cannot download TikTok. So we'll see how that works out for them. Blue Sky is built on the AT protocol, the AT protocol, which allows developers to create custom video and content feeds.

independent tools like Graze Social and Skyfeed are being developed to enhance video capabilities. So not only is this open, unlike Elon Musk's X, which we all love, but you can have independent tools attached directly to an app that you use. You don't have to use Blue Sky because it's on the app protocol.

There's more analytics, blending of text and video on Blue Sky, and personalized user experiences. You can personalize everything on Blue Sky. So speaking of decentralization, it fosters innovation and diverse use cases now. So what we were talking about before, the developers can develop on top of the platform.

Unlike X, where you can't because it's owned by Elon Musk. It's a closed garden. You know, it's kind of a mood point, but also a little bit funny is that Elon Musk is a bastion for free speech. And so I think of software as speech. I'm a web developer by trade. Check out my website, willwalden.com if you need any help or any work done. And also...

I believe in open source. I believe in open source software. And I'm sure Twitter and X have used parts of open source software. I believe language is code and code is language. So I don't understand why Elon Musk hasn't opened up X to, I mean, there's an API, but he charges for it. It costs money.

So that's not free speech in my, in my own opinion. If you have to charge for something that's not free anymore. So think about that. So is blue sky doing free speech better than X? Think about it for a second. I don't know. I don't know. It's a, it's an interesting topic to think about though.

So integration of vertical video on X though, it's part of the larger multimedia ecosystem that Elon is building. So he's building an everything app. It's similar to Facebook in many regards. Facebook has reels. Facebook has a newsfeed. Facebook has favorites. Facebook has live. They've had it for a while. They had payment integrations and Elon Musk,

A lot of people are thinking that he's just copying Zuck, you know, and that's an opinion from some people because Facebook kind of has everything already. And Elon is trying to make something that's similar to Facebook. And he says it's going to be more than that, where you can hail an Uber or hail a Tesla, things like that, which is going to be very cool when it does happen.

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So let's go back to the integration of this vertical video. And I'm not an Elon hater, by the way. I love the companies that he's built. So I'm just putting some points about the apps and the way that things are structured, just so we can think about this together. It's seamless navigation, though, on the X app.

Bottom bar, super easy. Tap it real quick. I don't like things in the top bar. I don't know about you or like on the sidebar or anything like that in your apps. Put it at the bottom where my thumb's already at. Because if I have to reach over, I have a kind of, I have a bigger phone. I have an iPhone Pro Max and it's like kind of a big phone. So if I have to reach like up, the phone gets a little floppy in my hand. So at the bottom is perfect spot for that. It's focused on simplicity. The interface is very simple.

So it's really easy to pick up and use. And it's going to be a comprehensive content platform in the future because of vertical video. We had horizontal video. You can upload as long of videos you want to as long as you pay for it. So think about that too. If you have to pay to speak freely through video on a platform,

Is that still free speech platform? I just like to think about these things sometimes. I like to think about them, but I want you to think about them too. So that's why I bring them up. That's not about hate. I'm not hating on anybody. But so far, they both had a positive reaction. Many users appreciate the added functionality in the TikTok-like experience on X.

suggestions for improvement from a bunch of users, extended video length limits, and editing features. That's one of the big ones, the editing features. TikTok has a lot of those, which these other apps don't have yet. But this is version alpha one. So in the near future, probably going to get some extended video lengths maybe, and some TikTok-like editing features as well.

So let me know if you've used these app in the comments on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now. I'd like to hear what you think about it. I'm a big proponent of X. I love free speech. I think it's a great thing. I love short form video. You'll find me some mornings when I wake up earlier than the wife that I'm just scrolling through TikTok or skipping through some YouTube shorts and you'll hear me talk about them here and there. So

I'm a huge proponent of short form video, and I can't wait to dig into all the short form video that I can find on X and also blue sky and check out our discord. If you want some other information, we can continue this conversation over there. And there's a link in the show notes for you. Also,

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