X is looking to get more creators posting to the app once again, by upping the payouts from its creator revenue share program, and enabling more people to use its long form Articles option to upload content direct to the app.
Which, given that xAI needs as much real-time data as possible to fuel its various projects, makes sense, but it’ll be interesting to see whether X is able to win over journalists and writers once again, a group that X owner Elon Musk has continually derided, mocked and ridiculed whenever they’ve dared to question his genius.
First off, on payments. Last week, Musk called on X’s head of product Nikita Bier to boost creator payouts, in response to a user’s request to increase payment amounts as a means to bring more authoritative content back to the app.
In the subsequent creator payment cycle, which occurred just days after this, many X creators did indeed report a significant jump in their earnings, which seemingly indicates that X is going to at least try this approach, in boosting the money that creators can earn by posting, in order to improve the data intake for xAI’s projects.
Which makes sense. The challenge for xAI’s products like Grok right now is that they’re defined by X discussion, which is good for real-time news, but probably not so much for accuracy, nor in-depth insight.
Getting more long-form writers to post to the app would help to address this, while also potentially driving more usage and engagement in the app.
Which also relates to the second update, with Bier announcing today that all X Premium subscribers will now be able to access X’s long-form articles option.
X Articles, which was made available to Premium+ subscribers in early 2024, enables paying users to post their long form posts direct to the app, which then open direct in-stream, helping to increase distribution, and keeping users in the app (as opposed to clicking off to another site).
Elon had sought to make this a bigger emphasis, as he wanted to stop people from using X/Twitter to gain traffic, seeking to keep them in his app instead. But thus far, the take-up of X Articles has seemingly been fairly minor, limiting the value of this as a real publishing option.
But maybe, with bigger payouts, and broader access to long-form posting, that could see more creators sharing their content direct to the app. I mean, if you’re going to post to your Wordpress site for free, why not post to X as well, and potentially get paid more for your output?
Which, again, will ideally help X gather more information, and get more content streaming through its circuits, which will then expand its real-time data banks, and fuel its AI projects.
Various AI providers are signing deals with major publishers to secure more of this type of information, and if X can get it for free, or for a relatively cheap outlay, that could be a path to driving more usage of both X and Grok (and xAI’s other offerings).
Though as noted, it’s hard to see a lot of journalists coming back to the app that they once loved.
Twitter had been a key driver of media discussion, and connecting journalists to relevant info and sources for their reporting. But Musk’s constant criticism of any media outlet that published anything that showed him in a negative light has turned most of them away, and Musk has shown no sign of addressing this disconnect.
Essentially, Elon wants journalists’ content, but hates journalists as a whole, which creates something of a disconnect in X and xAI’s business models.
Though, like most of Musk’s problems, he’s seemingly hoping that he can just throw money at it, and then continue to benefit from journalist content while maintaining his own bias.
It feels like X would benefit from having, say, a media office that actually responds, or a media relations team that looks to work with journalists to arrange such deals and partnerships.
I doubt that’s going to happen, but maybe, with enough money, X can win at least some credibility back, and help to improve trust in its AI tools as a result.
