Madalyn Sklar 0:03

Hey, this is Madalyn Sklar

Suze Cooper 0:05

and Suze Cooper and you're listening to All Things Audio.

Suze Cooper 0:13

Well, let's start with Elon space. It says on our notion board. So let's do that. Madalyn, Morgan, I know that you were listening into some of that - tell us about the Space that is just finished I think, right here on Twitter, where Elon was involved in a q&a, right?

Madalyn Sklar 0:28

Yeah, he was on for nearly an hour today with Robin Wheeler, I have the link to that in the nest. I'm also going to put in a nest, there was a really helpful, live tweeting going on from Sarah Fisher. And she basically took notes of the whole thing, it's a great thread, I'm gonna put that in the nest as well. Because whether you were there or not just reading through this, really, she ties it all together. And there were so many great points. But the first thing I want to say is you've seen Elon Musk's tweets, the last several weeks, his daily tweets, I was very confused about things. And granted, a tweet is not the same as talking in spaces, as we all know, here. After hearing his interview, after hearing him talk about plans, I feel like things make more sense. Now. I don't feel like should I be on Twitter? Or should I might not be on Twitter is Twitter going away tomorrow is space is still going to be here. I actually now feel better about things. And it makes me not want to go run on some other platform because all week people been like - So, Madalyn, where are you going to go next? When are you going to ditch Twitter and go? and I haven't made an announcement that I'm leaving Twitter. But there's so much it's been up in the air. But I felt like he clarified and Morgan you were listening in right. So do you feel better about things after hearing him talk?

Morgan Evetts 1:53

I do. I also sort of expected this. There's something when there's a difference between somebody's tweets and probably Elon tweet and hearing that person speak for themselves on the topic. And we know this audio does, right. But to put it on up there, he's you've seen this in video interviews elsewhere. But just to do it here in front of that crowd, I think makes a real difference. And he absolutely should do that this is a strength of one of the mediums on his platform that he can use. And it was very good to see him do that.

Suze Cooper 2:27

I mean, let's face it, we you know that the question is in the title here - is this the end for Twitter Spaces? the point at which I wrote that title, which was, you know, before the weekend, after Friday's kind of mass firing that the exodus that a lot of people who we've built up relationships with Madalyn, Morgan, you know, we've spoken to these people in spaces that have been building spaces, and it really felt like there was no way forward for it. So for Elon to now be using I mean, what what's the latest figure on how many people joined that space, it now does seem a little bit more probable that it's probably not going very far. Whereas previously, I kind of thought, well, maybe this is a feature that isn't going to hang around, you know that they're cutting back. The team, isn't there, like cutting costs and all the rest of it. But I guess maybe this shows that, you know, he really does value what spaces is about? What do you think?

Madalyn Sklar 3:23

Yeah, absolutely. So I was listening in live to the space and it was a lot of listeners. And I kept just watching the number go up and up and it got over 100,000 Live tuning in at the same time. Now what I did, as soon as it ended, I went right to the replay, like I was at the replay within a minute of it ending I took a screenshot is in the nest. And that's the best way to find out how many people tuned in live because unless you're the host, you're just going to see the total number of live and replays. And of course, the longer after a room ends then the higher the replay count can start going up. So I was able to catch it 635,000 people were listening in live and there was every big brand in there. I knew a lot a lot of people were taking screenshots I saw Morgan was taking screenshots, lots of people were doing that and, and I was really like, wowed by the fact that so many people, especially these advertisers are interested to hear directly from Elon. Now when you go to Robin wheelers. Twitter tweet with this q&a is currently as of right now 838,000 tuned in. So that's now adding in all the replays. So that's a lot of people who tuned in, and it shows you the power of Twitter spaces. And I feel very strongly in saying that space is not going anywhere. I mean, this really shows the power of it and that he's using it to get his message across.

Suze Cooper 4:57

Yeah, absolutely. And Morgan shared that screenshot, didn't he? Of all the all the different I mean, they're huge brand names in there, like wherever these brands been. We've all been doing this for like 18 months, two years now, where you all been? We were waiting for these big branded spaces that we were talking about. I mean, this was a q&a that was to advertisers as well, wasn't it?

Madalyn Sklar 5:17

Yes, it was geared for advertiser advertisers. But he did really explain a lot just in general. And you know, what's interesting, just a little side note, when when you're in spaces, and you know, how you can see like, you know, people you follow and follow you back are right next to you in the room, and as you scroll around, but it will always show you first, the verified accounts of who follows you. You follow them, they follow you. And I was surprised at a couple of big brands with millions and millions of followers that follow me. And I was like, Whoa, why are they so close to me next to you know, that it was really interesting to see that. Just a little side thing, but But yeah, I was scrolling down and looking at all Netflix, LinkedIn, Pinterest, so many big brands were tuning in to hear more about what he had to say. But I felt like he put advertisers at ease. I felt like Jennifer, I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this as well. But I really feel overall good about Twitter, I feel like spaces is not going anywhere. I feel like he was being sincere. Whereas when I was reading his tweets, the last few weeks, I did not always feel like things were sincere, just my personal opinion. But after listening to him speak, I feel completely different about the whole thing in a much positive light.

Jennifer Navarrete 6:37

I like hearing that from you Madalyn a lot. And Morgan. So here's my question to you all, I had headphones on, I was editing podcasts, I missed the whole thing. So until at the very end, I'm like what's happening? Something big is happening. And my question is, was this announced in advance? Or was it like we're going live? And you know, let's see what happens. And who shows up? I mean, was there advanced notice? Or was it just hey, Elans in a space talking? No,

Madalyn Sklar 7:02

there was some notice. But it wasn't a huge amount of time. I want to say maybe just under an hour ahead of time, or maybe 30 minutes, like it was not a big notice.

Morgan Evetts 7:13

Yeah, I think Kara Swisher got her heads up, perhaps yesterday. So there's one of her tweets, the ad partners. So this was a in quotes, a call that it that may well have gone out to the various ad partners that they need to be there. But it wasn't a it wasn't I think my public till the last.

Jennifer Navarrete 7:35

So I asked because those numbers are pretty darn impressive for last minute.

Madalyn Sklar 7:40

Exactly, exactly. That was like one of the first things I thought of because I pay close attention to a lot of big names, people who talk about Twitter a lot. I have a Twitter list, and I'm always checking and I didn't see anything early on. I mean, it was had to been like just under an hour before it went live. So I was like, Oh, I gotta be there. I gotta check this out. So I was able to catch the entire thing. But I really liked that. There was somebody, you know, taking notes in real time. So again, that's the tweet I put in the nest from Sarah Fisher. And it's a nice long thread, she really shows a lot of the key points, a lot of things that he was quoted as saying. So it's definitely an interesting read. And also put a real quick also I put in the nest. In response to that tweet, there was one from Josh online. And I thought he made a really good point here. He said Twitter spaces is, I believe, the most significant single innovation to be added to a mature social platform, perhaps ever. I'm glad to see it a priority on new Twitter's agenda. Now, I don't recall seeing this as part of the agenda for the new direction of Twitter. But because of this interview with Elon, and how many people showed up, and now we seem to embrace using social audio, that is not going anywhere.

Suze Cooper 9:05

Yeah. And I think this is the thing, isn't it up until now, we've all been listening out for the buzzword. We've been waiting for Elon to say spaces. And we haven't heard it let's face it, we haven't heard him categorically mention spaces or its future or anything really about it. And then all of a sudden he shows up on it and uses it and is there for you know, a considerable amount of time with an awful lot of interest. And so that kind of gives it that halo effect that you think well Surely it can't go anywhere then because you know he's using it but no one said that and he hasn't said that all he has been talking about really is about you know, expanding Twitter generally giving us longer form audio giving us longer video clip and you know, it's all about keeping us right here on Twitter, which as we've said before spaces is actually really good for for you know, for what is essentially a micro blogging platform to take us back to the way back when In the minimalism on Twitter has always been kind of its beauty. Certainly in terms of its tweets, I didn't like it when the character limit went up, I was one of those kinds of Star Wars, it was like, oh, you know, I kind of liked that limit of, of having to squash my thoughts into 140 characters or whatever it was. But I get that, you know, the longer we remain on a platform, the better that platform becomes for advertisers and you know, becomes far more appealing for what the business and that the, you know, the corporate side of it needs it to do. So, I guess the one thing that I was clinging on to with whether or not spaces might disappear, was that very thing is that out of all the micro things that Twitter offers, spaces, has people listening for a long time. And quite often, if you're anything like me, unless you're hosting, you're listening, and you're scrolling, you're on the platform, you're seeing new things, you're connecting with other people, but you know, you're also Yeah, scrolling. So you're right here in Twitter, doing what you what they want you to do. But Morgan, I know you you'd picked up on. There was a tweet, I think might be Matt Navarro sent out during the week, that was a kind of tick tock clip of Elon talking and he literally just mentioned like, I think he literally said like long form audio and podcasts. But he didn't mention spaces. I'm right? or no?

Morgan Evetts 11:24

Yes. Yeah. I've obviously been looking for this, too. Every time he's mentioned audio, it's always either alongside podcasts and never with the word spaces, or it's long, long form video and an audio. This is something that Twitter blew subscribers will be able to upload. Which but those of us who do recorded spaces is a possibly a slight eyebrow raised. Like what what kind of audio Are you going to be uploading?

Suze Cooper 11:51

Yeah and it’ll be interesting, you know, what happens with this audio tab?

Morgan Evetts 11:56

Yes, quiet. So this is still a this isn't really an open question. But he has inherited he bought, he acquired the spaces, infrastructure structure. And he's now using it. But and some some in the audience today. Well, we'll have this much more closer to home, that many people on the spaces team were let go unceremoniously. So. And there's a kind of question about what happens in terms of development now. And what does spaces become in the mix? And I guess these were always questions for us. It's just a slightly broader than they were. So it's here to stay. But how's this going to be added in? And the other part of that is thinking about his priorities right now. So this is something that Simon from community said in a podcast interview recently, that we should expect, priorities are very much about where Elon can make revenue, and quickly. So what form will that take when it's applied to audio is one of our questions,

Jennifer Navarrete 13:02

I have something to add to that, you know, one of the tweets that I put out, I don't know a few days ago was just kind of like, a threat of like, to the powers that be. And it was some of these features that we know and love, like spaces, like communities, you know, some of these amaze, the newsletter, the review newsletter that we know and love, I don't feel like they should get rid of them, I feel like they should just make them premium. If they had a choice between let's get rid of it, or let's make it premium. And if you want to create a newsletter premium, if you want to host premium, if you want to listen free, if you want to run a community premium, and if you want to join a community free because if we look@meetup.com, that's you pay to host an organisation on a group on meetup.com. But if you join, it's free. And if you look at LinkedIn, LinkedIn has many levels of premium service from like 2999, or something all the way up to $140 a month, depending on what level of service and premium service you want from them. And yet, there's also free. So I feel like there's existing examples in the world in the online space that Twitter could look at and go, Well, if you want to run a community that's like a group on meetup. And if you want to do premium stuff, like you do on LinkedIn, that's like Twitter blue. And I feel like sometimes folks lose sight of the fact that there are premium services that people happily pay for in other platforms. I mean, I'm a Twitter blue subscriber, but I've been one for a while now. So it isn't like something new for me. It's something I'm happy to pay for, because of the features that I get. So I feel like sometimes folks lose sight of that. And it's just my own thought, my own opinion, which, you know, take it or leave it,

Madalyn Sklar 14:37

you know, I feel the same way.

Suze Cooper 14:39

And that's also where this whole idea of Elon wanting to create app X you know, which is just something for everyone. That's, that's great. But you know, to break that out as you're as you're talking about that is potentially you know, we can see sense in that let's, let's hope he can to, I guess for him, it's whatever way makes the most money and Um, but But yeah, I mean, let's roll back a little bit because, you know, prior to today, kind of the I think the biggest shock for me was watching those people, those lovely people that we've spoken to in spaces who have built this amazing tool for us, one by one. Say goodbye on Friday, Madalyn. I mean, I don't know about you. But I was really quite emotional about everything that happened at the end of last week.

Madalyn Sklar 15:25

Oh, absolutely. Thursday evening, I saw Simon Bowman's tweet that he found out. And he's over in the UK. So it was like, because I remember it was evening time here in the US, it was really late for him. And the way he found out because it was, I guess, before the emails went out, that he was locked out of the company slack in his email. And I felt so bad for him. And he was running Twitter communities. He was doing the community for Twitter communities and overseeing communities. And he was so well light, and so well known and so passionate about his work. And I was shocked. And then when we heard about Danny Singh being let go, and he has done a tremendous job with spaces. And he's just been there for us and listening to us all this time as we all started off as beta testers with spaces. So it made a lot of us very nervous, rightfully so that they could, okay spaces is probably going away. Why are they getting rid of the team? But then there was a tweet, I had this in the nest from see who does a lot of the design work over in spaces. And while she's saying she doesn't really have a clear answer, with everything going on, she's saying things are changing day by day. But she's she said, from what she's seeing that the new leadership does recognise the value in spaces and podcasts. So, you know, that gave us some hope for sure. But after listening to Elon in the interview today, and seeing how many people came out, and I guarantee you he's watching those numbers, and we're really close to a million listens. So, that's gotta count for something.

Suze Cooper 17:05

Absolutely. And I mean, the the next tweet that we've got here that we were going to share is actually about the spaces feedback community. Morgan, this was one of yours. You know, obviously with with no team there, you know, it was a it was a spaces team, right, that were that were really fielding that community. So do we know what's going to happen with that as yet? Morgan? Have you got any insights?

Morgan Evetts 17:28

No, unfortunately, not yet. It's still very much in limbo. So, again, this is a sad, a sad story. But the three moderators for the ad official spaces feedback community, no longer work for the company, wireless. I mean, they, I believe that the the employment contract isn't actually terminated for a couple of months. So technically they do. They're just not allowed to do anything. So that community is is headless right now. And it looks like much is true of the the high community's official community as well. Not all of them there. I think, many of them, certainly Simon has gone. So there is this kind of limbo at the moment where this this is not just will this product be maintained and developed? It's and the question is who's, who's going to do that in the short term? And who's going to be talking and listening to us and replying to our questions right now? Because it doesn't seem like there's a an immediate rush to fill those those posts?

Suze Cooper 18:35

Certainly not. And I mean, we've seen, I've certainly seen at least one community that's kind of trying to usher people off of Twitter and perhaps on to a different platform as well. Do you think we can expect a bit of an exodus from other communities as well?

Morgan Evetts 18:50

I don't know. I mean, this is there's, I guess, like one thing is, there's uncertainty at the moment, right now. And you might wonder, Well, look, do I invest much of my time building a community where I don't have confidence in the roadmap? And we have Elon tweeting today? One thing, which might I you know, in one sense, I think this is great that he's willing to try things and drop them very quickly if they don't work. But that's also instability too. On the other hand, we have everybody tweeting about trying out other networks like going back to Mastodon and I'm not, I feel like my hunch is that this is a short lived thing, that there is uncertainty, but people come back. So I guess long, long term bullish, but there's there is real uncertainty now. If you are building something,

Suze Cooper 19:44

and you know, I think as well, while we're not sure what's going to happen, potentially all of these strands as Jennifer was saying there could be packaged up into whatever Twitter blue is going to look like in future, whatever it means to be verified, blue checked whatever it's going to be called. I mean, that was the quickest thing in Twitter history. Surely didn't we have official as a tag earlier today? And then literally hours later that was pulled? Did that happen? Or did I not did? Did I miss that?

Madalyn Sklar 20:13

No, that happened. I mean, they're trying things and changing it back at one point. I think it was last week or over the weekend, I went, I went into my Twitter blogs. I'm like, Jennifer, I've had Twitter blue for a while I am willing to pay to have these extra features. But it only costs $2.99 a month. Now we know that's gone up to 499. But now, the new thing with Elan is $8 a month. So it'll be interesting to see what these features but what they did at one point is they when you logged into your Twitter blew it mentioned you're now verified, but there's no blue checkmark. And I went into manage subscription, it's still show $2.99 It did not give me an option for this new $8. But what I've noticed as of today, is that people I know who are verified, are now getting the notification to pay the $8 the 799 a month to get this new verification. But then I saw it's there's so much to look at Sue's because then you got Jane Wong who is like, she has it. And she says if she stops it, it'll go back to her old blue checkmark. But with this new Twitter blue, she has the new checkmark. But she said also send her tweet, it doesn't look any different. So you could not really tell the difference. So that's a little confusing, I think because we can look at a verified account and not know, at the moment which it is, but we've been hearing about this new greyed out way that's going to be the like official account, we should make sense. But we're so used to the blue checkmark being the way to know this, this is a verified account, this is who they say they are. Whereas that's gonna go out the window and be more of your verified put or blue and you pay the money. And with that, you're supposed to get less ads, you're supposed to get more relevant content, which could be very worth paying for. But plenty of people will say, Okay, that's great and all but when you're used to a free platform, and all of a sudden the platform charges. You don't want to pay for it. And I know that's how a lot of people are gonna think they're gonna be like, Why would I pay for this? It's been free all these years.

Suze Cooper 22:37

And I just wonder how that democratises stuff like Elon sort of saying, you know, this is supposed to be the world's town hall or whatever. How is that equal for people? If actually, you end up with people who have paid a certain amount, getting a different service? And you know, their tweets being prioritised over other people's and how does that level the playing field? And I'm sure I've seen him somewhere. Having said that, or being quoted as saying that I'm not sure how that works. I mean, Jennifer Morgan, what are your thoughts on the on the whole check mark and the payments?

Jennifer Navarrete 23:11

You know, I want to talk a little bit about what Madalyn said, where when something is free, and all of a sudden it switches to pay that people don't want to pay at one time meetup.com was free. And then they started charging $20 a month, if you were the organiser, now it's up to $30 a month. At one time, LinkedIn was didn't have premium, it was just free. And then they started offering premium didn't mean that the free stuff went away, if I wanted to just be there. So I feel like yes, the democratisation part to address what you're talking about. It becomes a challenge. If you're running your group and you're in a country where they don't have Twitter blue, then all of a sudden, that becomes a problem. I feel like they need to address that. Because if I'm running community, or I'm a spaces host, and I'm in a country, that's not part of the Twitter, blue operational piece, all the sudden I'm left out in the cold and that's not right. So I feel like phase one may be just this phase, but they really very quickly need to address Phase Two for all the people in the countries that don't have Twitter Blue Access, yet. There's gotta be something they can do to level that playing field.

Madalyn Sklar 24:12

That's such a great point. Yeah.

Morgan Evetts 24:15

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of trend going on at the moment, this weakness in the ad market plus some major kind of systemic changes, particularly around Apple's ad tracking transparency policies, which mean that there are many tech companies at the moment that are struggling after a 13 year boom. And introducing forms of direct revenue or subscription revenue, recurring revenue to offset the variability of the weakness in the market. So we're seeing this in many different places. And I do think there's also another part of this. There's the famous twit line, I can't believe this, this website is free. Well, at some point, you sort of take that literally, that we all get a great deal of value. From this, and I think it doesn't become like a completely wild idea to think that this is a service that we might pay for in some form. And it might be that I've got question marks about this being the form of it, but but some form is possibly. Okay. I don't know. Again, at the same time, I really feel that I think you're absolutely right. So so this is like, levelling the playing field for the middle classes. But we still have the, like the landlord at the top and the pros at the bottom. Everybody who can't afford this, when this is much, if this is much more broadly a thing, we'll really lose voice here that you will not be prioritised in terms of engagement or visibility and reply, you won't show at the top of spaces if, if many people have this, those people will be floated to the top of spaces, and everyone else at the bottom won't be. So it does equalise in one sense that this is not tied to the whims of a verifier, who decide who is notable and who isn't. You can just pay for it. But in other ways, there is still a kind of a class or a caste system here of a different kind.

Madalyn Sklar 26:17

That's such a good point more again, I mean, I know in his interview, he talked about this $8 a month to help reduce the bots and the trolls. But it's not going to completely stop it, it is going to cause people that can't afford this, to get these extra services to do these things that Elon is talking about. So these are all really great points. And I feel like we're still in this wait and see, because we're still not 100% sure where this is all going.

Suze Cooper 26:48

Yeah. And you know that the the tweet that we we picked up earlier from Esther Crawford, she's actually retweeted Elon tweet, which says, Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. Like that's some kind of public service announcement. That's the caveat for everything that might be a bit weird. In the next few weeks and months, we're just to ignore it. Because it's okay. Elon is aware of it. He knows it's going to be a bit dumb. There's going to be some strange stuff. He says we will keep what works and change. What doesn't. But you know, I'm not sure how long our patients holds out with things. And I think is you say the uncertainty there needs to be a bit of leadership a bit of understanding. I mean, yeah, I totally don't see how they can keep things running. And stable and that without the team, like, where's there's no team? Like, this is all great. And he's using spaces and all the rest of it. But there's no team. Sorry, but he's actually on fire behind you. You know what I mean?

Madalyn Sklar 27:45

Exactly.

Jennifer Navarrete 27:46

Right. Well, so what about the fail? Well, I mean, what do we bring that back? I mean, I think that might be a hoot. Because for those of us who have been on Twitter from the very beginning, the farewell was very, very real. We were so accustomed to it. It just became part and parcel of fell well, and you Oh, it was common. It was so common. And you go to Plurk, you would go to Plurk or you go to Facebook, right, right. And so is this the new thing, right? We're going to see that kind of fail well, esque type situations where we're like, oh, now we're going to Facebook. Now we're going to LinkedIn, now we're going somewhere else, and then we'll come back, because we're still here. Madalyn, and I, who were here from those early days are still here, even through all of that chaos. I feel like there's Yes, chaos, that's going to happen. Elon is admitting it. We all know what's going to happen. Because there's no team as soon as mentioned, the majority of the team that helped all this happen is gone. But I feel like I mean, I don't know, I feel like I'm still going to stick around to see what happens. I've got my popcorn, I'm ready to roll and see what happens.

Madalyn Sklar 28:45

Yeah, I'm the same.

Morgan Evetts 28:48

I feel like the risk profile changes here somewhat that the kind of character is going to do well, in this new, you have to have a high level of risk tolerance, because things are going to change quickly. But that said, there's also I think, a lot of opportunity here. So the two things that that Simon was mentioning in the podcast was look, you should look for products that directly drive revenue to the company. Okay, that's, that's going to be one of aeons. Two main priorities. But the other one is products where users pay other users and the company takes a cart. So you're going to have to start thinking about well, given what comes down the pipe here, how can I do things that are really have value where other users on the platform are prepared to pay me for what I do, or even subscribe to what I do. The other part of this is, which we got someone in Elon to talk today is he wants this to be a place where content creators broadly on the internet will not just come and tweet about the thing they do on YouTube, but will literally upload their video here. And this will be a competitive place in terms of the kinds of revenue they can make it equivalent to places like Tiktok, or YouTube. That's very good if you're that kind of creative, but it also means that everybody here has to up their game. Because if Elon stuff goes, well, those people will be over here, too. That's kind of an exciting prospect. And it would mean that this place grows quite a lot. But if you're thinking about being a greeter, here, it's probably time to get very serious about that.

Suze Cooper 30:26

Very true. I'm going through now, and I am actually, we've got lots of speakers. We did have other news that we were going to cover today. And if you pick up the Twitter moment, there will be a few links in there for various things that are happening on Clubhouse this week. But you know, this is the topic of the moment. It's the topic of the title. And we've got a fair few people that have requested the mic. Pyotr, Hello, and welcome to the All Things Audio space. What are your thoughts?

Pyotr Kurzin 30:57

Hi. Very important, timely conversation. Just a premise about me. I know Morgan personally from Clubhouse. I first started on Clubhouse. And then earlier this year, we ran. I think it is the longest and largest room in social audio history. We basically ran a room for the first 105 days of the Ukraine war, nonstop reached about one and a half million listeners and resulted in Bobby Kennedy made me the icon app. I'm not trying to show off. I'm just trying to give you an understanding that I have been doing this for a while.

Suze Cooper 31:30

Oh, completely. And we covered that space actually right here on all things audio we discussed at the time. Oh, wonderful about the fact that it was so such long running and the moment in time that it was capturing so it's really great to speak with you. Yeah. So what what are your thoughts around everything that's going on?

Pyotr Kurzin 31:47

Um, yeah. So background is that I like Clubhouse. I built up relationships there that, you know, Twitter's so much larger. And I think that's the core component, which is this is an add-on to an existing app, Clubhouse was built around the social audio first and foremost. So there's a degree of intimacy and sort of, I don't know, I like the app of Clubhouse in terms of its interface, I think it's quite satisfying to use. Problem is Paul and the others haven't been listening to. I don't know if I'd call myself a content creator, but like people who are bringing people on to hold important conversations and or do things for comedy or build, you know, hosts meditation and music rooms. And that's why I've shifted to Twitter more, because there's there's opportunity to grow here. I am concerned by Musk's acquisition, you know, I don't think well, maybe that's me hoping maybe more than realistically, he's going to remove to interspaces. But if he if he doesn't, you know, I think there's a few areas you could improve it. I mean, I certainly could think of his couple easy ways to monetize this thing. You know, I've been talking to sponsors and people about coming on to spaces that I hosted with speakers to bring in some monetisation options. I have a podcast which I convert some of the Twitter space into evergreen content on the podcast. So this is a good multi platform purpose rehear. But again, I think that Twitter hasn't levied the function as much as they could have, there's a lot of features that I could include. I like the co-hosts function, but I think the opportunity to pin one specific link or connect spaces between one another give clubs or communities where people can, you know, into a club function and find your community like club houses, right. And then they can find you as the Finder and then that builds up your, your, your presence, you'll reach, I'm not a Twitter person in the sense of tweeting things, text wise, I get bored. And frankly, I find myself phrasing things much more eloquent about hopefully articulating them better audibly. So that's where I've seen my main engagement. And, you know, I don't agree with people who say that social audio isn't a thing, or it's not going to go anywhere. Clearly, it has its place. It's not going to, you know, absurd video, or YouTube, and text based formats, but I think it's a very important delivery method. And you can see that from organisations like Human Rights Watch, or activist groups. I'm mainly in the field of like geopolitics and stuff. So I know not everyone's cup of tea. But, you know, for that kind of area where you're bringing awareness to what's going on in Iran or Ukraine. It's so powerful and so easy to convey messages really quickly. So, you know, I hope that we see some positive things coming out of this. And maybe for people who want to be able to monetize it, there are some streamline methods being created as well. But yeah, I'll learn that because I could go on for ages. But thanks for the for the space.

Madalyn Sklar 35:01

Yeah, thank you for being here and sharing your thoughts. We love hearing from our listeners and is such an interesting topic to be discussing today. I do want to mention, I went to look back to see how many listeners have now tuned in to the Elan q&a It is at 900,000 is in the nest, he did a spaces q&a Earlier this afternoon. I'll put the tweet back in the nest to send the nest but it's more towards the beginning but I'll put it back in. So it's easier to find there's a recording it was about an hour long, very insightful. And currently 900,000 Total have tuned in which is so before the end of today, we're going to be at a million listens, which I think says a lot about spaces. All right, we've got a bunch more speakers. Next up is George. Hey, George,

George Silverman 35:51

Hey, how are you? I share your hidden Madalyn's reassurance from Elon today kind of thing. We got schooled in the difference between voice and tweets. His tweets have been a little flaky. A lot of his tweets are you know, what the hell's he mean by this is this guy sincere? I think his sincerity came through today, at least for me, I've actually reassured, reassured by we've already mentioned this tweet about it, we'll we'll do a lot of dumb things. I applaud that experimental attitude. And I see, I think there's gonna be a lot more of it. And what he said was, the important thing is not not to make mistakes. But he said majaz agility is the key to the whole thing. And that's what I'm hearing or reading between the lines, I'm reading that for him, this is a startup, not for us. And he's going to change a lot. But he's going to do it under high feedback conditions. He, in many, three or four different places today, mentioned customer feedback, and customer or user user participation in this whole thing. And so it's, he clearly wants something that's self correcting. And you set up high ideal, which is to be the most credible source on the internet, which is far, it's far from that now. And he acknowledges that. But he wants to get high feedback with Advisory Council, and a whole bunch of other things. So I just want to point out one other thing, just because he fired a team, the spaces team or the community team, doesn't mean there's a vacuum. I know those of us have been through mergers and acquisitions a lot. You remove all teams, you move other people in you consolidate things, doesn't mean that it's going to break due to abandonment, or be shut down due to lower lower priority. So I'm vastly reassured and welcome this increased amount of, of customer feedback. And he mentioned several times, you know, answer my tweets, I'm reading them, I'll answer you, etc, etc. So I'm reassured.

Suze Cooper 38:15

I mean, there's nothing more agile is there than bringing out this official tag and then totally seeing the reaction to it and removing it. That is quick work. That's quick.

George Silverman 38:24

Yeah, that's the entrepreneurial mindset. It's like, you know, often an error, rarely in doubt, you know, and when you make an error, you correct it, like immediately, you don't do things that aren't correctable quickly. And that he gets all that he knows all that. And that's what we should expect.

Madalyn Sklar 38:45

Well, thank you for sharing your insights. George, and yeah, you know, for everybody here, you and I've been DMing a lot these past few weeks, you know, hearing stuff from Elon, I know you're You're definitely a bigger fan of Elon than I am. But man hearing him actually speak versus those tweets. I felt he was so sincere. Whereas I felt like a lot of his tweets were not sincere. A lot of his tweets pissed me off. You've heard me talk about that the last several weeks in spaces. But after listen, I mean, I sat and listened, I was out getting my car picking up my car. My car has been in the shop at the dealership for a few days. I was sitting in the dealership waiting for my car to get it and listening on my phone because I did not want to miss this conversation. And listening Oh, my whole drive back before I got back to the office, and I was just wild by his sincerity in him answering these questions and he was getting some tough questions from the speakers.

George Silverman 39:42

This was not Saturday night, his Saturday Night Live thing that was written and rehearsed and scripted. You know, all that stuff. This was live and on the fly. And I really think he means what he says and says what He means and that he will you know Do it now could go down in flames. But I think it will be not for one to try.

Madalyn Sklar 40:06

Yeah, I felt like he just provided a lot of assurance that things that yes, he admitted things could go wrong. It could fail. But but he but he is listening, and he invites critique invites comment. There was just so much sincerity. So it's still a wait and see no doubt. But I feel better having listened to the entire conversation. And if anybody missed it, it was recorded this in the nest, I would definitely take a listen. It was very interesting.

George Silverman 40:37

It's also I mean, it was it was its purpose was to reassure advertisers. Let's not make any bones about that. I mean, that's just clear that was announced openly and transparently. That being said, I was also very impressed by you. Oh, by the way, you will Roth? And so I think they are they're trying and boy, he he set an awfully high ideal to make it the most credible place. You know, on on the internet. Wow.

Madalyn Sklar 41:07

All right, let's move on to our other speakers. But thank you, George. Really great insights. Next up is Adam. Hey, Adam, how you doing?

Adam 41:13

I'm doing well. Madalyn, how are you doing? and Suze? everyone? so many familiar faces, it's great to see everyone. So I was in that space, too. And it was, you know? First they, I almost felt like we were hearing the Down to Earth part of, of Elon. They were you know, sitting in a meeting room, having a Twitter space and broadcasting live answering questions. And what I noticed that I remembered back when, you know, the bid initially went through, he had put or in or was tossed. It might have been right before when he was tossing it around. And he started putting up those surveys, like, you know, would you should everyone on this platform be verified? Would you should DMS be and then encrypted. A lot of like, so I think he was addressing a lot of those because those surveys that he posted, had millions of responses. And overwhelmingly he's listening to the users of the platform. And whether that be the consumer, or the advertiser that's, you know, paying another ad, and, you know, he's definitely for freedom of speech. But he said, you know, that doesn't mean if something said that that, like, essentially, like, you know, it will want it will be very quiet. Like, he, I was very glad when he said, you know, you're not gonna see anything, like next to an ad like, he really he addressed, it hates he dressed hate speech here, just that he addressed. Just so many different things. And when we were on there, so in our not to go over it, but we really saw the Down to Earth version of him and and I agreed with Georgia on now you're, you're you're off his, you know, goal of keeping everything up and running. And then And Elon candidness, of saying like, I just got the keys last week, tomorrow, like, the way he said it. And the platform is losing, you know, is $4 million, approximately per day, a billion plus per year, so suddenly has to be done immediately. So he is taking the Silicon Valley, which in the entrepreneur, route of you know, fail fast. If but without without failing, you don't have innovation, you know, you have to try everything. And he said, I might be completely wrong. I was just so like, he was so honest about it. So I was very I didn't expect I expected a certain amount of honesty, but he was completely honest with his feelings. And really just add like it wasn't a scripted thing. It was like, you know, he had the questions in advance. He was thinking about it. And then he said, Well, let me go over to your Roth for that. And do you have any thoughts on this? I mean, it was amazing to see that and and then again, to reiterate the amount of brands that were in there. That just shows the power of Twitter and Twitter spaces by itself. I mean, they're here, and they're listening and they want Did you hear what he had to say? So I thought it went very well. And I'm looking forward to see what happens and where everything goes and and hoping that we see the innovation that he's talking about another major thing, that thing is going to be coming. We'll be, you know, the data and privacy of everything. Well, you know, we might have a bit more control that he really I went back over because I had, you know, screen shotted, every one of those polls, and that I noticed a lot of questions. So I got the grass, so I just found it very valuable.

Suze Cooper 45:41

Super interesting that you've managed to kind of tie up what, you know, he obviously said, in previous weeks, and whatever with what's come out today, and I really don't want to be too cynical about it. But we did need some reassurance. And we did need he needed some good PR over here, maybe. So maybe this was the moment. I mean, you know, I'd be lying if I didn't say that. I'm glad to use spaces. Because for me, you know, me, Madalyn, and probably most of the people that are in here, and certainly those that join our all things audio space each week, we would hate to see spaces disappear. And this does feel like a bit more reassurance for us that that feature on the platform isn't gonna go anywhere soon. And, you know, it might not be built as quickly as we've seen, and it might not have new features, and it might not expand and all those different things. I'm really hoping it doesn't disappear behind some kind of paywall, which is a possibility that we've discussed during this space today. But yeah, I mean, it's good that he's taking the mic. It's great that he's used spaces, I've still got to go back and listen to it. Because it all happened so quickly before this space happened that I didn't have time to listen to it. But I will be listening with a bit of a pinch of salt critical error, I've got to admit, because, you know, I'm still not sure. I'm glad he's using spaces. But um, yeah, I don't know. I don't want him to just be saying what we want to hear. You know, I mean, thank you so much, Adam, for your thoughts. That's that's just fantastic. Rae Rae you're up next. What are your thoughts around everything that's been going on over this last week?

Rae Rae 47:09

Yeah, I think is very fascinating. I think I'm gonna listen, I didn't hear I didn't, I was available at the time when he was doing his speech on Twitter. But I think that you guys are wrong about saying that, you know, it's free, we'd given information to them. And they're not, you know, even if you paying $8, you still give me extra information. And maybe they don't say it, but they are getting data from us. They just are. So I don't I don't believe anything is free. When it comes to social media. They make you believe that. But it's not true. I don't know why they do that. But it's not true. They're using us and they don't want to be he doesn't want to be you. He wants to use us. And us pay him for using us. That's how I feel. I'm ready. Ready? Thanks. Ooh, good point,

Jennifer Navarrete 48:01

Rae Rae, because if something's free, we are the product no doubt. And even if we're paying, we are we are the product. Good point.

Suze Cooper 48:08

Yeah. So well made. I'm going to chat with Jason now. Bunsen, I see you there. What are your thoughts on all of this?

Jason (Bunsen & Beaker) 48:16

Well, I was I had the I have the day off. So I'm super glad I was able to listen to the Elon Musk space live. And then I noticed I had the ability to upgrade to the quote unquote, blue checkmark. So that's what I did. And that's all cool. For eight bucks. We got Bunsen and beaker verified. I don't want to rehash what everybody said. I totally agree with the sentiment. That's the only thing that I wanted to say is there's a vast difference between Elon that tweets and Elon that talks. Yeah, I kind of wish. I kind of wish he talked before he tweeted. Because talking Elon is I almost want to say like kind. Like he had a he had an articulate thoughtful, kind voice and, and he tackled all the questions. But when he tweets, occasionally he reminds me of like a middle school kid. And I'm a teacher. And if a middle school, if I gave a middle school kid a Twitter account, I kind of feel like they've come up with kind of the same or soft, similar stuff that Elon was coming up with. So it definitely caused people to get a little leery and I that's probably why he that space was so important that he was it was damage control for all of the brands that maybe one to abandon ship because they're super concerned with what was going on with Twitter. So kudos to Elon, I think he probably come down the waters a bit. One of the things that he mentioned that nobody else has brought up that I found very interesting is that he mentioned that for the people that apt are verified, and they pay the eight bucks a month, the algorithm is going to treat them differently. And the analogy I think he made in the space is that if you aren't verified, your tweets may become like the spam in your spam folder in your Gmail account. And I mentioned this and another space I was in just a few seconds ago, I never I never checked my spam folder. I don't I go in there occasionally, when somebody's like, Hey, I sent you something. And I was like, what? And then there's all this other crap in there. So that was, that was a huge impetus for me to quote unquote verify or pay for Twitter, the upgraded Twitter blue, is I don't want our stuff to wind up in spam filters. I want our our message of science and empathy to get out there. So worthwhile for me. Good to listen to Ilan, and I don't want to rehash everything else that everybody said, but maybe some of you who've listened can give me your opinion on that. It is a little it is a little classist. If you've got eight bucks a month, you don't wind up in the spam folder. That's the only thing I'm gonna say.

Pyotr Kurzin 51:10

Yeah, I just want to jump in on that. I think we need to be careful about romanticising Musk too much. This is a dude who's made questionable business decisions previously. And this venture, if you want to call it that is a lot different to the other ones he's undertaken. Equally spaces is very different to the actual core crux of Twitter. And he may not see that it's worth putting in a bunch of time to expand the features or opportunities with it when he wants to improve Twitter as a whole. So you may not see very much happened at all or he may reduce the support and the focus that is on it even as it stands. So you know, things get worse before they get better. Equally, I think that the methodology, when it comes to the blue verification mark is absurd. You've basically switched from one form of elitism, ie via whether or not you've got access to specific qualifications to basically whether or not you have enough money to pay, which I don't think is a very clever method. And equally, I was looking at one stream yesterday, which was talking about how he's putting his suggestion or other people's present gestion, I think I retweeted it, of adding an official like underneath your underneath your name, or your your tagline would sort of be a supplement to the blue tick as well. So blue tick is for those who are part of the subscription service. And then if your official public figures, celebrity, government and agency, whatever it is, you know, has an additional official underneath it, which is all well and good. But it kind of defeats the purpose of the verification badge in the first place, then, so what's the point and then you might as well just offer other ways. If you want to monetize the Twitter areas, there's other ways to go about doing it, then simply if you want to be seen as a verified voice paying your way through, it doesn't necessarily solve the misinformation, disinformation element that we're seeing here.

Jennifer Navarrete 53:04

I'm curious, does anyone here pay for LinkedIn premium? Just does anyone because I know that the LinkedIn premium folks have like a badge? If I'm correct, like a goldish badge or something? Is that right?

Pyotr Kurzin 53:18

I think they have like a yellow shield or...

Jennifer Navarrete 53:20

...A yellow shield - so isn't that and to some extent, show that they are paying for additional features and additional services and probably get things that those of us who aren't me I'm gonna raise my hand is not paying probably doesn't get I probably don't get as much reach as they do. I'm thinking I don't know, for a fact. But I don't think I'm getting the kind of reach that someone who's paying $140 A month or 2999 a month is getting. And let's do that comparison that 2999 a month at a minimum up to $140 a month, compared to eight bucks.

Pyotr Kurzin 53:51

Yeah, but the distinction I'd made there is that LinkedIn is for networking and business explicitly, whilst link Twitter is also social than just sort of chatting with people. So I think targeted if that makes sense.

George Silverman 54:07

I think that they think that the the check mark is going to provide an additional screening method for spaces, tickets very relevant to spaces. So Elon went into some detail about how the $8 means that you have to have a bank account, you have to have a credit card, some spambots not going to go get 1000 credit cards. So it's an additional screener and I think it will up the quality of spaces because I certainly will let people up to be speakers, more the people who have that checkmark in there. They've got that additional little layer of a verification. And by the way, as Adam was speaking before, I got my checkmark just appeared.

Pyotr Kurzin 54:54

I'm sorry, George, but how can someone who's got a blue checkmark be verified as a good public speaker?

Madalyn Sklar 55:00

It's a different kind of verification. Now it's not going to be the same type of verification, it's going to be a different type. That that's that's the point he made today.

George Silverman 55:08

It will just be that additional layer of legitimacy. Is it proof of legitimacy? Of course not. But it's just that little extra edge. I will certainly give an extra edge to people with checkmarks. But somebody's got a, you know, sensible bio and all I'm not going to exclude them. I think it's going to be relevant to the quality of spaces. That's all I'm saying. That's my hope.

Suze Cooper 55:35

Thank you so much to everybody that has joined us in the space today, everyone who's taken the mic. Special thanks to Jennifer and also to Morgan for joining us and helping to host.

Madalyn Sklar 55:50

Thank you to all of our speakers who came on and shared so much great stuff, and were available and all of your favourite podcast apps were out there all things audio, you can also go to all things audio podcast.com, as well

Suze Cooper 56:04

You certainly can. And you can catch us here on Twitter and use the hashtag all things audio, and we'll pick that up throughout the week. So that's it for this week. But thank you so much to everyone that's been here in the space with us and those of you listening, and we'll catch up with you next week. Bye everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai