Great Site Here You Got Here, Too Bad it ain't Free

It has been a long six months since my last post and upon reflection it is remarkable how quickly the tech landscape can change. For example, these past six months has seen Facebook/Meta’s stock price nearly halve. We also bore witness to a strange purchase of Twitter by that tricky sinkster, Elon Musk. In my prior post, I reflected on the business of social media and how it attracts users with *that which is unmonetizable*. And then Musk goes and purchases Twitter for $44 billion, as is, where is.

As it “sinks in” that Musk bought Twitter for teh lulz, Twitter users have gamely played along, trolling him right back. For now, it appears that he has ascended to the S-tier of Twitter main characters.¹ There is a lot of elon-hustle and elon-bustle these days in the *public square*. All this attention is perhaps the ultimate ends of the transaction; however, Musk has urgently set about ameliorating business losses. It appears he would like to keep Twitter as an ongoing concern.

Because this ownership transition is happening so publicly² and ruthlessly, certain Twitter business stresses have become apparent.

One of these stresses is that advertising revenue is fickle. Musk would have us believe that receding advertising revenue is driven by ideological zealots rather than the notion that Twitter’s advertising offer is likely oversold³ and not a viable avenue for growth. Since a round of layoffs aren’t sufficient to stem Twitter’s monthly losses, Musk is prospecting for non-advertising revenue streams in…an ad-tech platform.

                                 And he chuckled, and clucked, "What a great Musky trick!"
                                 "With this sink and company, I look just like Saint Sink!"
                                 "All I need is revenue..." The Sink looked around.
                                 But, since moneys are scarce, there was none to be found.
                                 Did that stop the old Sink? No! The Sink simply said,
                                 "If I can't find a moneys, I'll make one instead!"
                                 So he called his dog, Whatsup. Then he took some blue thread,
                                 And he tied a big check on the top of his head.

                                                        - Lines 44-51, "How the Sink Trolled Markets" - Doctor Guess Who

It appears that one source of additional revenue will come from the sale of verification badges (aka blue check marks).⁴ As Musk and Co. transition the blue check from the old Tony Larussa litigation inspired verification process,⁵ to a product sales process, we might ask: What are blue check marks? Why sell blue check marks?

It’s a special seal.

The blue check mark can be viewed in ~~(at least)~~ two ways: (1) as anti-fraud measure, and (2) as status symbol. The blue check’s initial purpose was to decrease the risks associated with the impersonation of “public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well known individuals“. Since Twitter is also where one goes to become well known it may not be surprising that the blue check is desired by many users, including the famous and the almost famous. It is a status symbol, difficult to acquire, scarce. These two perspectives are intertwined as each require the symbol to be selective and authentic.

In Code Version 2.0, Lawrence Lessig reflected on “social capital” and “physical capital” in cyberspace. Social capital is “the set of relationships you’ve developed” and physical capital, is “all the stuff you have”. So if I log into a forum, or Second Life, or social media, or whatever, and chat with some folks and buy a site specific avatar, I’ve accumulated some social capital and some physical capital. There is distance to both offline locations and online locations. Social graphs are platform specific just as a community is neighborhood specific. Your social graph stays in place if you move away. Lessig also made the point that physical capital is easier to move offline than it is to move online.⁶ Monetizing the blue check mark is an effort to extract physical capital from the goodwill (the social capital) associated with the blue check symbol. This effort seems likely to decrease the trust and desirability⁷ of the symbol. Furthermore, is the company not opening up the risk of another LaRussa litigant?⁸ Perhaps the blue check shouldn’t be monetized.

Perhaps it could be rebranded. Perhaps other aesthetic status symbol items could be rolled out that aren’t checkmarks. Who knows what will happen with Twitter in the next six days let alone six months, but your intrepid blogger might be there to pontificate. So stay tuned.

Great Site Here You Got Here, Too Bad it ain’t Free