X is making a bold push into the streaming market by developing a dedicated TV app, aiming to bring long-form video content directly to living room screens. According to early screenshots, the platform intends to aggregate videos from various organizations, publishers, and creators, positioning itself as a direct competitor to established giants like YouTube.
A Strategic Pivot Toward Big Screens
This initiative marks a renewed interest in TV-based engagement for the platform. Back in 2016, during its Twitter era, the company experimented with a suite of TV apps designed to showcase live events and real-time conversations. However, those efforts were abandoned just two years later as the company sought to trim unprofitable business units, leaving the actual adoption rates of those early apps unclear.
Building on the TikTok-Style Foundation
Despite previous failures, the vision of becoming a video-first platform remains a central goal for X. Shortly before Elon Musk’s acquisition, the company introduced a TikTok-inspired, full-screen video feed. This feature remains a core component of the interface today, allowing users to tap into an immersive viewing experience and scroll through continuous clips, laying the groundwork for a more robust video ecosystem.
The Creator Economy Challenge
The primary obstacle for X is not the interface, but the content library. The company must incentivize creators to produce original video content that is compelling enough to keep users engaged on a television screen rather than mobile devices.
Monetization remains a complex hurdle. While X launched an ad revenue-sharing program last year based on engagement and views, its efficacy is under scrutiny. When prominent creator MrBeast earned $263,000 from a single video, he publicly labeled the payout a “facade.” He noted that the high earnings were likely an outlier driven by advertisers rushing to capitalize on the massive attention his video received, rather than a sustainable model for the average creator.
MY FIRST X VIDEO MADE OVER $250,000! 😲
But it’s a bit of a facade. Advertisers saw the attention it was getting and bought ads on my video (I think) and thus my revenue per view is prob higher than what you’d experience pic.twitter.com/nViVpZbWBb
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) January 22, 2024
Uncertainty in Creator Monetization
Reports from The Wall Street Journal in March indicated that even after high-level meetings between Elon Musk and top creators, significant confusion persists regarding the platform’s long-term plan to support the creator economy. While Musk has aggressively experimented with video streaming in Spaces, video calls, and even conferencing tools, these features have yet to materialize into reliable, large-scale monetization opportunities for the platform’s users.
