Elon Musk wants to replace all social media with a single app
What is app “X”?
The richest man in the world after deciding that he wants to finally proceed with the acquisition of Twitter, informed his followers on Twitter that the acquisition of the platform will be only the first step in his plans to create “X”, the application for everything!
But what is one app for everything? The idea of a hyper-app is extremely popular in Asia, and tech companies from all over the world have tried to create one in the past. It is essentially the “Swiss army knife” of applications, a suite of services that will offer messaging, social networking, payments and e-shopping in one application.
The most successful example of such a hyper-app is WeChat in Asia with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat is an integral part of everyday life especially in China, as users use it to send money to friends and family, make payments, make video calls, call taxis, exchange messages and stay informed. In Southeast Asia there is also Grab, which offers food ordering and delivery, taxi calling, courier services and financial and investment services.
Elon Musk was impressed by WeChat stating that ” you practically live with WeChat in China “, adding that he saw the opportunity to create such an application as there is nothing like it outside of Asia. His goal, it seems, is to use Twitter to create this super-app. Let’s remember that before the acquisition, Musk’s plan was to reach Twitter users from the 237 million they are today, to 1 billion.
Other western companies have tried to create this kind of hyper-app and have failed. Snapchat tried to introduce payments with Snapcash but abandoned it in 2018, while also branching out into mobile gaming, abandoning that venture recently. Meta’s platforms have also attempted to expand beyond their social media role into e-commerce, with limited success so far.
