In 2022, top microblogging app Twitter, renamed X, was the seventh most popular social media site in the world, according to a Hootsuite survey. It is quite likely that X could no longer repeat the feat and make it to the same list in the future.

Xis set to see Daily Active Users (DAU) drop to 250 million, a drop of 53 million from April 2022 when it was acquired by Elon Musk, and down 66 million from its peak in July 2022, claims the latest report of Data.ai, a San Francisco-based AI firm that studies mobile app market data.

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Threads has also lost 40 million DAUin November 2023 compared to its peak day on July 7, 2023 at 61 million, the survey points out. The Indian microblogging website, Koo, also saw monthly active users fall to about 3.1 million in April 2023, reports had stated earlier.

A gradual change in the way people consume the news content now is being blamed for this decline in the microblogging segment. Instead of text news, people now prefer video news available on video-sharing platforms like YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Instagram etc.

“While platforms like X are likely to maintain a core niche of users, the overall trends show consumers are swapping out text-based social networking apps for photo and video-?rst platforms. Along with a series of mismanagement and public image fumbles for X, there is a general shift of where news content is being absorbed,” the report underlines.

It is noteworthy that X stopped showing headlines of news articles (which now Musk says the platform will resume), introduced “verified” status to $8-per-month X Premium subscribers (whose posts receive algorithmic preference); and launched a test to charge users $1 per year to post to the platform among others which has dissuaded many users.

The Chinese video-sharing app TikTok, which has been banned in India since 2020, is making further in-roads on X’s news’ stronghold in the US, the Data.ai report claims. “Over 43% of US TikTok users report they get their news on the platform, double from 3 years prior. Formerly a ?rst-port of call for news, X (Twitter) has seen the share of users seeking news drop from 59% to 53% during the same period. Video-?rst news is now king.”

 Changing user preference**

Microblogging was born out of the disruption of more traditional pre-digital information media, such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Besides their 24/7 availability, they made popular participation possible in what had historically been an elite-dominated, pure push and one-to-many broadcasting model.

“Twitter, Threads, Koo and LinkedIn all originated in vastly different businesses but they are pursuing the same customer experience. The younger generation always looks for something new. The short video platforms are extremely popular among Gen Z and X,” says an ad executive.

Meanwhile, the media landscape is also changing from fragmentation towards convergence. Social media platforms seek to offer a bouquet of services to increase user engagement and stay. For instance, Netflix and Amazon offer video games. Adoption of algorithmic feeds across the board (for example Tik Tok is selling its algorithm) is another sign of convergence in the media landscape, experts say.

A media planner says, “On a macro level, audience attention is shifting from professional productions to user-generated content. This would boost video-sharing apps further in the coming days.”