#5Things: This Week in Social

Joey Scarillo: Welcome to the #5Things: This Week in Social. We’re the Webby award-winning podcast that looks high and low for the five most burning topics in social content and the internet. If you are a marketer, an advertiser, or a creator, then trust me when I say you are listening to the right podcast. Today on the pod, we have a very special kind of episode.
It is our end of year party pod. We like to take a moment to look at the year ahead and pontificate or pod-tificate about the social media landscape for the next 365 days.

Here it is, friends. We made it through another year.
I'm in the mood to rhyme, so hold my beer.
Elon showed us all a flex as he morphed Twitter into X.
Instagram's reign spreads and spreads
as they forced us all onto threads.
TikTok's year was truly grand,
assuming that they don't get banned.
Barbenheimer stole the summer
and too much social can be a bummer.
The year cooled down for the old NFT.
Our AI overlords arrived in 2023.
The year had its ups and downswings,
and we talked about it all on The 5 Things.
Glad to say this rhyme is no more,
so let's go ahead and predict 2024.

The Party Pod today features panelists, listeners know and love, especially if you are a longtime listener of the show. This crew is ready for 2024.

So, first up, we have Data Strategy Director Daniel Avon on the pod. Hello, Daniel.

Daniel Avon: Hello, Joey. Thank you for that serenade. Felt like I was playing that game on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me with the limerick. I was like, what's gonna be the rhyme?

Joey Scarillo: Well, that's one of my favorite podcasts. So maybe that's where it was inspired from. So question for you, Daniel. What was your favorite internet trend of the year?

Daniel Avon: My favorite internet trend of the year was the well “yesification” of it all. There is a classic video of, I think her name is Tokyo Toni, saying, “Well, yes!” when she just kind of got caught in something in an interview. And that has been found throughout the internet, the annals, as well as the present day. And it's just such a joy bringing thing whenever I see it.

Joey Scarillo: I love that. I love that. Okay, and back on the pod, it's Strategy Director Jessica Womack. Hello, Jess.

Jessica Womack: Hey, Joey. What's up?

Joey Scarillo: Not too much. What surprised you most about the internet this year?

Jessica Womack: I would say probably the really wholesome reaction to the Barbie trend overall, just culturally. Like, I think when they said a Barbie movie was coming out, we all knew that it was going to be successful. I think We were surprised that it skewed so heavy to adult but I think what was really nice about it was how well and how warmly it was received. I think the pessimist in me really expected to be there to be like a really heavy wave of like misogyny against it but instead like I think Barbie pink is still somehow in fashion several months later. People are still saying hi Barbie. I predict it's gonna be a Halloween costume for years to come. Like it really became this like bigger cultural conversation around womanhood that I think was really heartwarming and surprising because I expected the worst.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, I think Barbie had the best year ever.
And next, we have a good friend to the pod. She is a group strategy director, Hannah Loeff. Hello, Hannah.

Hannah Loeff: Hey, Joey.

Joey Scarillo: Hannah, what was something on social that you feel like you just couldn't get enough of this year?

Hannah Loeff: Well, just I loved all the Barbenheimer mashups, although I am kind of ashamed to admit that I have not yet seen either of the movies, so that is what I am most looking forward to over this holiday vacation, watching them back to back, getting that in theater experience from the comfort of my couch.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, six months later, but that's okay. That's okay.

Hannah Loeff: No one has to know, Joey. Nobody's gonna know.
Joey Scarillo: That's right. That's right. And back on the pod, we have the one and only Group Director of Health & Wellness Engagement. It is Caine Fair. Hello, Caine.

Caine Fair: Hey, everyone.

Joey Scarillo: Caine, was there something on the internet that you feel like you saw too much of this year?

Caine Fair: You know, I think I'm going to plug my own story in this five things on this one, but you said it in your beautifully written rhyme earlier, AI was going everywhere. I think we're to the tip of the iceberg, but seeing AI come up in the most ridiculous ways. People developing these visuals and images of, you know, I just saw another day, it's like make, make someone more American, more American, more American, more American.
And it became this like, the very end of it was this eagle, like shooting fireworks, like, you know, doing everything stereotypical American in the image. I was like, you know what? I can be without these for a little bit. I think I've seen this, this trend, uh, hit its limit for my feed. Um, so I'm looking for a refresh next year, but that's one that I think I'm done with.

Joey Scarillo: Nice. Yeah, I feel that. I feel that. And finally, we have our special guest for today. Someone longtime #5Things listeners may remember. She is Grey's Chief Data Officer. It is Beth Rolfs. Welcome back, Beth.

Beth Rolfs: Thanks, Joey. Hi. What was your favorite thing about the internet this year? Oh man, that It continues to just boggle me with the things that are coming out of people's mouths. I think it's really interesting to see what's happening with celebrities this year and kind of the like unhinged nature of some of the people that used to be held in such high regard in our Society and also just the ridiculousness that can come from people sharing their personal
Stories too much.

Joey Scarillo: It's too much. Well, I'm Joey Scarillo and I'm sure I laughed every single time I saw the Bill Hader dancing meme this year. You all know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to sing the song, but it's all in your head now.

Okay. Let's get to the task at hand, friends. Here are the five things that will take us into 2024.

First up, Daniel will tell us about the future of dating apps.
Then Hannah describes what a world of subscription social apps might look like.
Then Jess explains De-Influencing and why it will be important as we look forward.
Then Beth gets us up to speed on what could be in store for Instagram. And finally, Caine tells us all about X's next.

Okay, let's get ready to look into our crystal ball. Daniel, kick us off with the future of dating apps.

Daniel Avon: aSo Joey, I'm going to take you on a journey quest. Imagine a world in the not-too-distant future where there are no more bad first dates. How do we get there? And what would that look like? Before I get any further into the future of dating apps, I must disclose I, in fact, met my partner on Tinder this year, but I'm also somebody with some unbiased experience, or possibly some biased experience, in that I graduated college as Tinder, was starting to gain popularity, and shortly thereafter moved to New York City as a single person, and know firsthand that dating apps as they were, and as they have evolved to be, can often be a hellscape.

Catfishes, flakes, ghosts, creeps, uninteresteds, over eagers, oh my. Dating apps can truly be toxic, scary, and a pretty sad place to be. But for singles, at least historically, they tend to feel like the only place to turn to find a match. This grew a lot in the pandemic but is seeing an interesting trend now as this FOMO driving people to go to dating apps is, is drying up a little bit.
The apps know that they're kind of a hard and terrible place to be and their solution has been to introduce monetized solutions to improve the experience for lucky few. It's given them flexibility, it's given them opportunity to be a little bit more choosy, and that's cost a few extra dollars. In the instance of Tinder's Tinder Select, it costs 500 extra dollars a month.

So imagine spending $6,000 a year, but you have to be a select and exclusive person. And with this, you get the option to direct message people without a match twice a week. You get a badge indicating that you are Tinder Select, and you get access to select mode. So you can see and be seen by the most sought-after profiles, hide ads, and a few other features that come along with it.

So this is our present. You have to pay to play to get the best features. But I am here to talk about the future. To Caine's chagrin, we're going to talk a little bit about AI. AI is finding its way into all aspects of our lives, and it's no different from online dating. To an extent, you could debate that it's already kind of present there.
Online dating, the profiles that it serves you up, all based on algorithms. So trained based on user experience and written by coders. But there are some other potential ways for AI to move into dating apps to improve the experience, safety, and so forth. So one fictional account I read in preparation for the pod today was having an AI version of yourself.

Essentially, you build and train an AI profile that will have first dates on your behalf. So it'll either meet other real people or other AIs to kind of talk the small talk and get through, does this seem like a potential match? That honestly doesn't seem too far off because you look at Instagram and so forth and they are creating sort of AI-ified versions of individuals that could be a path for that type of development.

But I also read a decent amount about how AI can be used for safety, profile authentication, Purposes to ward off fraud, catfishing, things in that nature. This or the last year we saw the Tinder Swindler come to be. And recently there was a headline of a Miami woman who set her date and his car on fire.

So there is definitely need given these and other horror stories that exist on dating apps for sort of security and authentication, as well from a text perspective to vet and flag messages that may seem risky or fraudulent, i.e. what's your bank number, something in that vein where it feels a little bit out of character for somebody to ask on a first chat.

It could also help, as it already kind of is, the most awkward thing of meeting somebody new, which is, what do you say when you match? I've seen prompts, AI prompts coming up. Possibly there could be prompts to continue the conversation.

And lastly, knowing that everything is trained on algorithms, and AI is also trained on, uh, past experience, a major concern that I saw kind of come up in a few stories was, if we're shifting more towards AI, the same biases that exist based on what the algorithms are trained on exist here.

So, if you have a predominantly heterosexual app, or an app that has predominantly white folks, those datasets are going to bias against. Other folks may deprioritize profiles that don't get liked as much and so forth. So this will be a big watch out and hopefully something that as AI is introduced into these dating platforms will be taken into account.

But the bad news is Gen Z is actually kind of getting out of dating apps. So while all of these like monetization, premiumization, AI-ification of it all is happening, it's not making the experience something that Gen Z is really leaning into. So what I see as another part of the future is trying to bring those Gen Z users back because they are actually turning, interestingly, to non-dating apps and social media.

So sliding into the DMs on TikTok and Instagram. Even going to organic in person meetings, I saw something that said Eventbrite this year alone has seen speed dating events increased by 63 percent. So we have some nouveau retro happening right now. It's not the speed dating you may have gone to at the community center, but it's like at queer bars and so forth that these types of things are popping up.

The CEO of Roblox even talked about that potentially being a place where people can date. So you see a little bit of like this in person and alignment of interests. that is popping up within the space. And lastly, we've also seen traditional matchmaking, this kind of centuries old profession kind of creep its head again, Jewish matchmaking and Indian matchmaking on Netflix.
And you kind of hear anecdotally of folks saying, should I go to a matchmaker?

So all of this within Gen Z and sort of broadly in culture is kind of demonstrating that there's a limit to dating apps, that they may seem too false or inorganic, too stressful, too much effort for what you get out of it. So If the app's ambition to attract Gen Z and sort of this zeitgeisty audience, they're gonna have to make it simpler, easier, possibly not as monetized and seeming as much as a game and seeming a lot more organic for those users.

So in summary, gonna see some AI involved in this. Hopefully AI does kind of ease these pains and allows for this organic authentic-ness to happen or authenticity to happen. But it's a pretty difficult thing to find a match, so they have their work cut out for them.

Joey Scarillo: Wow. That is a huge update and so much potential for next year.
Jess, I'm curious, of all the things that Daniel laid out, from the technology integrations with AI, to the human matchmakers, does any of it scare you? Do you have any watchouts for people using these apps in the year to come?

Jessica Womack: Oh, the AI one scares me for sure, because I think it is a pretty obvious and well documented notion that AI can cause a lot of harm and be offensive and say things and produce images that hurt people's feelings or create harm in the world.

Not to say that that's all AI, but I think especially when you have a topic that's as loaded as dating, where you have body issues, cultural issues, like dating is really like one of the most vulnerable spaces that we are in as individuals and people. And so to open up AI into that could be helpful, sure, maybe.

But at what cost? Because there's going to be someone who has to experience the early version of it, at which it says something that could trigger someone's, you know, sensitivity around eating, or someone's sensitivity around their hair, or whatever. And that person's going to, you know, ultimately be the reason why something gets tweaked in the algorithm so it doesn't happen again, but they got to be the guinea pig first. And so I think that that's a really concerning and scary idea.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, that is a little bit scary. And it makes me selfishly glad that I'm not on those apps and don't have to be the one who tests those out. Moving on to our second thing of the day, Hannah, talk to us about the world of subscription social apps and what that landscape might look like.

Hannah Loeff: Yeah, sure. Well, Daniel and Jess are a tough act to follow, but the burning question that I'm going to pose as we head into 2024 is if the era of free social media is finally coming to an end. We've seen this year that due to declining revenues and pretty tough economic conditions across the globe, that apps have started to charge their users.

More specifically, they're implementing paid plans that unlock a whole variety of different features depending on the platform, ranging from things like amenity check marks to exclusive stickers to ways to increase your reach. Just to name a few. One of the things that I found particularly interesting is that there's fairly significant discrepancies in price points for these subscriptions.
It ranges from about 4 a month at the very low end all the way to $14.99, which is pretty steep if you ask me. I love a good Insta binge, but it's certainly not worth 180 a year. For me, it all begs the question, why would or should anyone spend their hard earned cash on something that we have historically accessed for free?

One of the quote unquote “alleged benefits” of these subscription models is that they allow for the verification of users which, in theory, should alleviate concerns over bots and fake news. I will say candidly that for me it actually raises a ton of concerns around exclusivity, potentially creating an alienating environment for users who either can't or won't pay, but that's another story entirely and I will not take us down that rabbit hole.

The other feature that has been a pretty hot topic of conversation is the ability to pay for an offer experience. Now, I should probably caveat that this isn't something that platforms are currently offering in the U.S., but we do know that Both Meta and TikTok are currently testing ad free offerings overseas. So if something like this was implemented in America, it would, of course, have huge ramifications for people like us and for our clients. So I do think it's worthwhile to just quickly touch on some of the potential consequences. First and foremost, uh, we're likely going to see increased competition. As more and more firms introduce these subscription-based models, users may very well become overwhelmed.

We could see subscription fatigue. I actually suspect that it will be very similar to the streaming wars and we could see massive consolidation from an ad usage perspective. The other big issue for our clients is going to be the loss of market advertising because when platforms remove ads from their feeds, brands then lose the ability to target that audience with a high degree of efficiency.

And it becomes far more difficult to achieve certain KPIs for paid initiatives. So I think if I had a crystal ball, we could expect to see an increase in the value of influencer marketing. We should also see an increase in reliance on things like organic reach because it's now going to be the only way for brands to actually connect with these premium subscription users.

My takeaway is that if brands aren't really authentically engaged on these platforms, they're going to lose a lot of eyeballs and potentially a lot of dollars. So I can wrap up this ramble by predicting that pay to play isn't going anywhere, at least not anytime soon. It is another, uh, source of revenue that we know these tech companies so desperately need right now.

The net net is that as consumers, I think we're going to have to brace ourselves for this new subscription normal as advertisers. We're just going to have to try and help our brands stay ahead of that curve.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, it's, it's quite a wild world. I mean, and, and such a spectrum too, when we think about these apps being pay to play Beth, just general question here, would you pay to be on some of these social apps?

Beth Rolfs: I was just thinking that, I mean, I think I would pick one and I would have the one that I'm willing to pay for, and I. I can't help but also think about the economics of it all, like, will the, will these platforms get enough money from subscription to lose potential advertising dollars or to lose potential just eyeballs? It'll be interesting how it shakes out.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, it is, right? And then I fundamentally think like, generally, I would probably lean on the side of saying, no, I don't want to pay for social apps. But then LinkedIn just like creeps its way up. And I'm like, yeah, I could pay for some premium LinkedIn. “Why not? Let's get some good insights there.”

You know, I'm curious to see where this ends up going. Podcast apps generally have always been free and some have tried doing paid versions. So. You know, we'll see. We'll see what happens with these social apps, but it's definitely going to be something that we will be talking quite a bit about into 2024.

Okay. Speaking of things that I want to know more about in 2024, Jess, tell us about De-Influencing. What is it and what does it mean?

Jessica Womack: Yeah, guys get ready with me while I talk about. De-Influencing and how it doesn't mean anything anymore. De-Influencing is, if you don't know what I'm talking about, is a trend on TikTok or a very popular hashtag that hit like a pretty noticeable peak, I want to say maybe October of this year, around the fall time.

It hit like a huge peak. And now has kind of become a bit of TikTok lexicon in the sense that it doesn't really mean anything anymore. So to backtrack, De-Influencing started as a critique of overconsumption and so really it came from this place where people were critiquing the long term sustainability of what influencing meant as a subculture.

It meant buying a ton of clothes, which is awful for the environment, but it also raised all of these questions of, like, the morality of capitalism. This idea that, like, more is better all the time. Is that true? Does that lead to people feeling more empty? It was this, like, really heavy, like, kind of existential topic when it first started.

Then it became a space for influencers to kind of talk about the negative experiences that they've had in their careers as influencers. So I'm talking about how expensive it is to buy new clothes on a weekly basis to keep up with these faster trends or talking about how being an influencer has impacted their self esteem.

Then, as it continued to evolve, De-Influencing evolved to talking about negative reviews of overhyped products. So for instance, like the new Apple headphones. super expensive, really cute, everyone loves them, they make everybody look cool. But it kind of became a trend to talk about how they weren't the best quality headphones.
In fact, I'm not even using them right now. I am using the crappy wired ones from like 10 years ago now. So De-Influencing became a way to talk about products that were really expensive that you didn't think were worth it after buying it to save your fellow TikTokers from making the same mistake. Now after all of those evolutions.

De-Influencing is just this mix of kind of critique and criticism. And like most trends on the internet, it doesn't really mean anything anymore. And a lot of marketers, I think, are in this space where they're like, because of de influencing, influencing is over. No, it's not. It never is. It never will be.

I'm so sorry, guys. You still have to have an influencer budget. You still need to have a really strong social team. And you need to be aware that influencing isn't going away. And we look at the history of advertising. Before influencing, they were just celebrity endorsements. I know that Justin Bieber Proactive commercial, like the back of my hand, it was so effective.

I wanted it so bad because it helped Justin Bieber. And now it's the same thing with Alex Earl. Before that, it was the shopping network on TV. Which I think now we equate with like elderly homes and like our grandparents being addicted to buying things they see on television or segments that they see on Good Morning America.

But before that, it was magazines. And before that, it was soap operas. Fun fact, guys. Soap operas were created so that home goods like, uh, CPG brands could sell and slip in not only beauty products, but home products, but cleaning products. That's why they're called soap operas. And before that, it was Tupperware parties.

Before that, it was print media. I could keep going. It is human nature to want what someone who is richer and prettier than you has. We are never going to get over that. And I think that as a collective society, we should all just mentally prepare for influencing to evolve. So if you say, well, Jessica, how is De-Influencing going to.

Change things in 2024. Three things that you guys can walk away with. One, it's going to become really entertaining and fun and engaging to do the opposite of a positive product review. So, it's going to become really entertaining for influencers to basically pull apart and rip apart product for their audiences.
Talk about why it was terrible. Talk about why this was the crappiest smoothie you've ever had. Talk about how this sweater fell apart. two times after washing it. So that's really important because brands need to really invest in their community managers to be ready to respond to situations like that if your product gets pulled apart.

Second thing, I think there's going to be a phase out in haul videos. I think it's going to progressively, especially as the cost of living crisis gets worse for most people, the idea of someone being like, I spent 400 at Zara this weekend. Let me show you all. 40 shirts I bought. It's going to progressively make people angrier as opposed to it being like a really engaging piece of content.

So there's not much marketers can do there. I guess maybe hope that you don't get involved in those. But then I think the last one is the most important takeaway and I think it's going to be that all content creators are going to, in and of themselves, become influencers in a way. Even if you're a gamer, the mouse you use, the chair you're sitting in, the game you're talking about.
If you're a cook, the spatula, the, what is it? La Crusette? I didn't take French in high school, but I hope y'all know what I'm talking about. That little thingy with the, that goes, the ramekin, nice, whatever it's called, you are going to be an influencer no matter what your content is, if you are creating content.

So I think that there needs to be a bigger and broader understanding of who influencers are, because they may not be the stereotypical image that marketers have in mind.

Joey Scarillo: Jess, thank you so much for that journey.

Jessica Womack: You're welcome.

Joey Scarillo: That was truly, I feel like I went all through time. Caine, I'm curious from your point of view, how do you think the business around influencers could change in the next year, given everything Jess just laid out?

Caine Fair: Thanks, Jess. That was awesome. And I think one area that I've been pushing for a lot of our brands is in knowing kind of the shift and how we're identifying influencers in the past. We'll call it decade. And as Jess mentioned, it's been going on for maybe a century. Is identifying what the right sphere of influence is for your brand.

So if there's individuals that are telling a more authentic story to a smaller audience, they may not be pulling in this massive amount of reach as much as someone like Justin Bieber is. But, you know, when we look at spheres of influence, it's identifying with your brand and your partner, like what actually makes the most sense.

And it may not be the traditional influencer that we're talking about that has the most reach or the highest influence to the large scale audiences, but maybe one that has a smaller connection to a more core audience you're trying to really connect with at an authentic scale. So it's, it's just identifying appropriate spheres of influence that you're going after with your audiences to make the most appropriate, um, impact that you have from a business perspective.

Joey Scarillo: Nice. Thank you for that, Caine. Well, we're going to round out these last two things here with apps that we all know and love very much. Beth, talk to us about Instagram's future. Yeah. Instagram.

Beth Rolfs: My favorite app.

Joey Scarillo: Is it the one you would pay for?

Beth Rolfs: It's the one I'd pay for it. Yeah. I'd hope that I'd just get all the TikTok stuff later, but Instagram has, I think, a bright future. There's a lot of talk about how Instagram has some of the best talent. And we've seen over the years, they're pretty adaptable though. They're able to say, this is what's hot on a different app and make it happen in the app that we all are very comfortable with in a very kind of Instagram-y way.

The prediction, the future for Instagram is deeper authenticity, deeper connectivity through kind of niche communities. And when you dig into like, what does that actually mean?

Talking to Gen Zers, when they say they want deeper connections through their social media apps, a lot of times it's like things that I think for maybe an older generation feel almost MySpace y, where it's like having your close friend group and being able to add people to your close friend group, being a way to show someone that they're part of your community, liking people's content in feed and on their pages and then throwing a comment out there.

So, you know, it's not any kind of new behavior that feels really different, but there's a focus for Gen Zers to really get into the space of creating deeper and more meaningful connections and get a little bit out of kind of the more superficial haul videos. And. typical influencing behaviors. That being said, when you look to kind of what people are saying, the future of Instagram is going to be content is king.

There's going to need to be kind of that constant cadence of content and UGC coming from creators and just folks in general. But there are some surprising trends that are popping up, right? With like fashion and beauty, there's A look to actually buying less new clothes and really leaning into thrifting and shopping local.
There's kind of this turn to modest dressing and being able to find what your core fashion is. So again, something that's a little bit more authentic to who you are versus just on the trends. And then One of the things that we have to talk about is AI and the role of AI in really creating these kind of deeper connections in these niche communities.

And I think AI, we see it in Instagram reels of people taking, you know, photos of things in their house and transforming them. That's just the, the tip of the iceberg. I think we're gonna see a lot of changes to the algorithm. and people starting to see more of their close friends and family's content and getting pushed the messages even that come from those people that feel right for who you are.

I think there's some danger in that and kind of the echo chamber effects and really getting smaller and smaller and smaller minded almost, but it's what. The people want, I would predict that that's the big way that we're going to start to see AI coming to life in Instagram in 2024.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, it's so interesting, right? I mean, we didn't even have to do one Thing on AI today because AI has found its way into every single Thing that we are talking about.

Daniel, speaking of Instagram and all the features that it has, I'm curious, which feature of Instagram do you think has the most opportunity to evolve? Do you think it's the reels, the stories, the messages, posts, or even the search?

Daniel Avon: For me, I think it's the feed. Like, it's kind of all of those things in one. I've noticed recently a lot more suggestions for pages. So in the past, you really only were served up, like, people who you follow directly, but they're trying to recommend more things. And I envision, maybe not, like, a merging of the Reels ecosystem in the main feed, but some way of introducing more video in that space, because like me personally, I have an addictive personality.
I am not going to go into reels because I know I will lose hours and days of my life.

But video is currency in these types of spaces, and they are really fighting hard to win TikTok users and TikTok eyes and hearts. So I would imagine they're going to try to really monetize that feed and introduce more video experience and content with it.

Be it through recommendations, like recommending more things in that vein or, um, something else. I think they've tried other things this year, like the broadcast channels and messaging and things in that vein that just feel like interesting ideas, but really don't seem to be going anywhere. So stick to what they know best, the feed.

Joey Scarillo: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's so much to Instagram that it's, it's hard to even wrap your head around every piece of it. All right. Speaking of apps that do a lot. Sounds like X has some big plans for next year. Caine, why don't you tell us about X's next chapter?

Caine Fair: Of course. And by the way, Instagram, I would pay for it too, Beth.
Let's, let's end on that because that's probably my most used app.

Let's switch gears here and, let's talk about X. So I'll do a quick recap of 2023 and then we'll start thinking about what this platform will be doing in 2024. So. As we know, Elon closed his purchase of Twitter, which he soon rebranded to X.

Since then, I'd say things have gone not quite smoothly, as they might have. Some after massive layoffs this year, as we know. Some really interesting business decisions. As of now, I think it's valued at about less than half of Musk's purchase price. So, maybe some interesting things to think about with that this year.

And also, in a more current update, you know, we've seen prominent advertisers fleeing X. And in response, Musk recently has kind of told them to go bleep themselves. And then this week I saw he most recently unbanned Alex Jones, which was the right-wing extremist that had previously been banned from the platform.

So from the outside, it's really hard to conclude that X is doing anything amazingly well. It kind of looks like a sinking ship, but the way that he's able to really turn this around in 2024 will be really interesting. So I think there's two directions that are plausible. The first one is what I'm going to call the everything app and Joey, I think you just mentioned that.

And the second one is we're talking about kind of how they can step into this world of AI we've been talking about. So first off is the original stated master plan that had been developed was all around this kind of one stop shop. So from the outside, you're looking at, it's kind of, it's tempting to conclude the X is a sinking ship.

And I think it's really one of these. Individuals behind the helm that can really go any direction as we've seen in 2023. So there's two kinds of plausible directions. I think that will be coming to fruition in 2024. One of them is really around this thing that we're calling the everything app Um, this is the original stated master plan of Musk.

In his words, really turning something from a single platform into a multi format communication platform that can talk about financial transactions and commerce and entertainment and pretty much any other functionality currently assigned to the smartphone. So this idea of turning X into that is a large claim and suggesting that his plan is simply to beat all other apps out to own the smartphone, if you will, as a platform.

And also take on the financial systems is a pretty hefty plan, but one that you know Could be possible with someone behind the helm as he is and as we think about 2024 Like if that even is a plan, is that even possible? I think right now it's a bit more of a goal than a plan maybe an aspiration than a plan But nonetheless knowing him and kind of knowing his power and what he's been able to do with other entities.

Up to X's Point, it could be possible. So when we think about another option here and an area that they'll be focusing in on is ai. So we've been talking about AI kind of nonstop in this pla or in this, in this podcast, and I think it goes for good reason. We've seen the power of AI. We know Elon is a huge AI guy.
He loves talking about it. He loves. Um, everything involved with it. I mean, he was one of the founders of OpenAI. Eventually, he parted ways with OpenAI and tried to take it back over, and then he failed, and then moved on, except kind of not really, because he talks about it all the time. And around that time, when he was looking to buy Twitter, you know, buying Twitter then backing out.

One thing that he could not stop talking about was OpenAI. And I don't think the AI was a poor part of the pre-purchase discussion around Twitter and maybe only made a brief cameo appearance in, in the discourse of Twitter. And, but mostly him talking about and complaining that open AI wasn't paying enough for his, or access to tweets, which he was talking about a financial way of, of allowing the open to really, um, tap into Twitter as a means to.

Strengthen their algorithms and also get money out of it. So one interesting thing that we saw as of the last couple of weeks is that actually X just announced that they have filed a company called X. AI Corp. And that it's raising up to a billion dollars in equity funding with nearly 135 million already banked.

There haven't been investors listed, but one thing that we know for dang sure is that X is going into this AI world. It's kind of one of those things that I, I find interesting, like, I think it's extremely optimistic at this point to, you know, ride the coattails of ChatGPT and start up the steep hill of another massive venture.
But, you know, we know that he has the backing of experience, and I think that he is now understanding that Twitter or X could be the first to leverage real time cultural data that could then become used for an AI output. So we'll see if it actually comes to fruition, but I know that there are kind of movements happening in the back end to make this more possible, and there's some big tank pole moments that have already kind of taken place that to really start to think that he's going to be using X or the platform of X to leverage for AI.
We'll see. I think it's just interesting. It's all hearsay at this point, but fun to think about, fun to check.

Joey Scarillo: Yes. I unfortunately know that we will be saying Elon Musk a lot more in the year ahead. That is my prediction. Hannah, my question for you. Do you think an everything app will work for X? Do you think it will be popular? Do you think it will be successful? Do you think that it can happen with Elon at the helm as Caine?

Hannah Loeff: That's an interesting question. I don't know that I have a definitive answer. I think that what TikTok needs right now is focus and to win advertisers back over because right now, I don't think that X stands for an everything app, I think it stands for uncertainty.

And the one thing that we do know for sure is that brands aren't going to shell out the big bucks until they can expect a little bit more stability from the platform. So, you know, we're seeing that they're open to short term technical initiatives, but they aren't investing long term in building their brands.

On X, the way that they had been when it was Twitters. And quite frankly, I don't blame them, given just the political climate of late. So, it was kind of a cop out to your question, Joey. I don't know. We'll see. I think he's gonna try and compete with the likes of the TikToks of the world. I certainly suspect that they're going to launch a new video ad product, particularly ahead of the election.

Will that merge into an everything platform? It remains to be seen, but they're going to need to do something smart if they want to be viable long-term.

Joey Scarillo: That's great insight, and it does remain to be seen, as does everything we've talked about today on the show that does it for us this week and for this year.

I want to thank our panel today, Beth, Caine, Hannah, Jess, and Daniel, and to everyone who's been a panelist on the show or anybody who has worked on the show. Thank you.

If you don't already, be sure to follow us, share us, review us, like us, or write to us with your questions, comments, concerns, points of interest, or complaints, or just send us a thing you want us to discuss. You can do all of that by emailing us at podcasts@grey.com.

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The topics discussed on this show are written and researched by the Brand Planning, Data Strategy, and Social and Connections team at Grey New York.

This podcast is produced by me, Joey Scarillo, and Samantha Geller, with postproduction by Amanda Fuentes, Guy Rosmarin, and Ned Martin at Gramercy Park Studios.

Marketing and communication support from Adrian Hopkins, Christina Hyde, and Jayda Hinds.

Quick program note: This of course is our last episode of 2023 before we take a much needed holiday break and we will be back in mid-January.

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