Four years in the past, a billionaire tech govt main one of many world’s pre-eminent social platforms laid out a imaginative and prescient to remodel it into an app that would do all of it. In a web-based manifesto, he wrote that the app wouldn’t solely be central to written communications however have audio, video, funds, commerce and extra.
The concept was akin to that of an “everything app” espoused not too long ago by Elon Musk, the proprietor of Twitter. But the dream belonged to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief govt of Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. In a 2019 weblog publish, Mr. Zuckerberg outlined how he would flip WhatsApp into an app that could possibly be a platform for a lot of “kinds of private services.”
In Silicon Valley, the pursuit of an every thing app has come up repeatedly as tech leaders have strained to develop their digital empires. Mr. Zuckerberg tried it. So did Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief govt of Uber. Evan Spiegel, the top of Snap, mentioned he needed to go for it, too.
Yet these efforts fell quick, with the tech executives unable to copy the magic that has abounded in Asia with “super apps” like China’s WeChat, Japan’s Line and South Korea’s KakaoTalk. U.S. tech giants have as an alternative run into cultural variations, regulatory scrutiny and a splintered monetary system that has made the search to construct such apps tougher.
And now Mr. Musk, who this week modified Twitter’s title to X, the moniker for his every thing app, is chasing the identical purpose — and is prone to face the identical challenges.
In the United States, individuals are “accustomed to single-service apps, which makes moving to a multiservice app a bit disorienting,” mentioned Dan Prud’homme, an assistant professor of business at Florida International University. “To some extent, U.S. customers don’t like feeling that they are too beholden to a single firm for their everyday needs.”
Mr. Musk has been enamored with an every thing app since not less than final 12 months. Weeks earlier than closing his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October, he tweeted that his buy could be “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
On Monday, he tweeted about Twitter’s rebranding to X, writing: “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”
Yet Mr. Musk has mentioned little publicly about what his every thing app would seem like, how it might perform or why folks would wish to use it. In November, Twitter filed paperwork with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to turn into a funds processor, and workers have been constructing a funds service.
Mr. Musk didn’t reply to a request for remark.
His plan faces many doubters. He has “taken a wrecking ball to Twitter” and undermined how folks use the platform, mentioned Chris Messina, a tech entrepreneur and the creator of the hashtag. “It seems as if he’s going to build a grab bag of different functions and ram it through the user base.”
Much of the need to create an every thing app is rooted in Asia, the place such apps have flourished for greater than a decade. In Japan, folks use Line, the nation’s dominant messaging platform, to retailer vaccination playing cards and store for garments. In South Korea, folks flip to KakaoTalk, which began as a messaging service, to ship cash and request taxi rides.
None have been as profitable as Tencent’s WeChat, a messaging, social media and funds app utilized by a couple of billion folks, largely in China. WeChat dominates the cell web and is a one-stop store to learn news, discuss with buddies, order pizza or pay the owner.
Many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have lengthy thought-about WeChat the gold customary for cell apps.
“If you go to China, you see how much easier everything is, and you say, ‘I wish I had that for myself,’” mentioned Ted Livingston, the founding father of the messaging platform Kik, which is backed by Tencent. “WeChat is effectively the operating system of daily life in China.”
In 2013, Snap’s Mr. Spiegel additionally referred to Tencent as a mannequin when it got here to getting cash. In an interview final 12 months with Axios, he spoke glowingly of Tencent’s continued success with WeChat and mentioned Snap was additionally constructing a “Snapchat super app.” Tencent has invested in Snap, most not too long ago in 2017.
In 2019, following Uber’s preliminary public providing, Mr. Khosrowshahi echoed the tremendous app mantra. He mentioned he noticed his ride-hailing app because the “Amazon of transportation” and needed it to be the “operating system for your everyday life in a city.”
That similar 12 months, Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged related ambitions for WhatsApp. Mr. Zuckerberg has since added fee and commerce options to Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, although none have turn into an every thing app.
That might come all the way down to totally different regulatory and cultural environments, Mr. Messina, the entrepreneur, mentioned. U.S. tech giants have come beneath heightened antitrust scrutiny from regulators world wide, however Chinese tech firms which have Beijing’s blessing have flourished, even amid a crackdown on tech energy.
In November, Mr. Musk was requested at a companywide assembly at Twitter about his every thing app concept, two individuals who attended the occasion mentioned. An worker famous that there have been elementary variations between Twitter and Tencent, the folks mentioned.
Mr. Musk responded that the questioner didn’t know what he was speaking about, earlier than asking for the following query, the 2 attendees mentioned.
Mr. Musk has not held again on his predictions for X. “If done right,” he mentioned in a current podcast interview, X might turn into “half of the global financial system.”
Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s chief govt, has additionally appeared keen about X.
“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity — centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” she tweeted on Sunday. “Powered by A.I., X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.”
Source: www.nytimes.com