January 2025
X Increased the Price of Premium+, Threads Continues to Innovate, Thoughts on Bluesky
Happy New Year! We hope your holidays were restful and rejuvenating.
The end of 2024 brought some notable changes in the social media landscape, summarized below. Moving forward, we'll be consolidating this newsletter into a quarterly publication, so stay tuned for updates!:
- X increased the price of their Premium+ subscription by 30%
- X launched Labels for parody and fan accounts
- Reports of a mass exodus from X remain unverified, with incomplete data suggesting minor shifts away; X continues to claim high engagement, especially during the election, highlighting its relevance in real-time information sharing
- Threads rolled out individual post analytics
- Threads expanded its mobile capabilities, allowing up to 100 drafts in the app
- Threads now allows toggling between feeds: For You, Following, and Custom Feed
- Meta reports suggest ads may be coming to Threads in early 2025
- Instagram chief Adam Mosseri announced that Threads is moving into a more independent phase and may separate itself from Instagram
- YouTube is testing audio replies to video comments
A Note About Bluesky
Bluesky, a new social media app reminiscent of Twitter, has gained significant traction recently, largely due to discontent with Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. Unlike Threads, Bluesky allows default Following feeds and unrestricted political discussion, making it appealing to some users and tech media. Usage has surged, with a 500% increase in the U.S. and 25 million total users, though it remains much smaller than Threads (300M) and X (500M).
Despite the hype, much of which may be fueled by the tech press, Bluesky’s growth potential remains uncertain. Threads has more resources and user base advantages, suggesting it may remain the main rival to X. Bluesky could carve out a niche akin to Mastodon with committed user groups. While not yet essential, reserving a profile on Bluesky could be a prudent move.