Why the X platform might have a future as a streaming platform after all (2024)

Following Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, a lot has changed for the social media platform -- besides the name. Now called "X," the app now allows for direct long-form video uploads from verified users, allowing for interviews, podcasts, and even entire films to appear in a single post.

The new direction certainly differs from the site's previous 140-280 character limit, and seems to be in an almost weekly state of flux as Elon Musk and newly minted X CEO Linda Yaccarino work to define and determine which features bring forth the ultimate "everything site" vision. We've seen Bluesky and Threads pop up as competition for X's traditional short posting format, but now X is taking the competition to different fish in other ponds, streaming services.

While Elon Musk has made it clear he plans for X to support everything from classic micro-blogging posts to financial transactions to town hall-like spaces for open forum discussions, it's the growth potential in long-form content that might be the most exciting thing happening at X right now.

Semrush

X is doing well, despite what you might hear

Look to organic traffic stability

After an uneven start plagued by questionable leadership choices, mass layoffs, advertiser boycotts, and general drama, X has found its footing over the last year. Organic traffic on the desktop site in 2023 saw a 165% increase over 2022, and that traffic has held steady into 2024 thus far, seen by Semrush data generated above.

similarweb

Over the past six months, the X platform has been holding steady at around six billion visits per month between desktop and mobile users, generated from approximately 850 million unique visitors per month.

@MrBeast

The Mr. Beast experiment

Trialing popular personalities and brands first

James Donaldson, better known as "Mr. Beast," is the second-largest YouTuber in the world. Over the 12 years he's been growing his main channel, he has amassed an astounding 254 million subscribers. In January 2024, Mr. Beast decided to conduct an experiment and began posting full-length videos on the X platform.

@MrBeast on Youtube (left) and X (right) side-by-side comparison

The result was a resounding success, with all the videos posted so far garnering in excess of 100 million views, and many of them having been posted to X after a weeks or months-long head start on YouTube. Donaldson took to X to say the experiment yielded positive results, saying "Posting videos on X has been awesome so far." The second-largest YouTuber in the world has shown that the potential for long-form video content on X might have legs.

Saturday Night Live on X

Popular entertainment finds heavy viewership on X

Long form content is finding its feet

Posting longer videos on X is still a relatively new feature, and it will take some time for brands, artists, studios, and other creatives to catch on to the potential for expanded viewership. There are already some great examples of early adopters, however, as some are wasting no time in testing the waters.

Saturday Night Live, the long-running sketch comedy show on NBC, has begun posting longer videos to its account on X. Ryan Gosling hosted the most recent episode of SNL, and the show was quick to share his opening monologue on both YouTube and X. As of the writing of this piece, Gosling's SNL monologue has over 4.5 times the number of views on X as it has on YouTube.

Saturday Night Live on YouTube

Television shows aren't the only ones leveraging the platform's enormous audience for video content. In August of 2023, Taylor Swift announced that her blockbuster Eras Tour would be released as a concert film in theaters. She posted the trailer for the film to Facebook, YouTube, and X on the same day. The trailer received ~8, ~13, and ~57 million views respectively, with X garnering more than double the views of the other two platforms combined.

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Has X become the "everything" app?

An uncertain future, but not one I'm betting against

The future of X is far from certain, and it's entirely possible the site will go through any number of iterations before reaching, if ever, its final form as an "everything" app. The opportunity currently presented across multiple verticals, video streaming among them, is X's to squander, and time will tell if the company pulls off the ambitious and somewhat idealistic vision laid out by its controversial owner.