Elon Musk lures YouTube stars to Twitter

The new Twitter owner will offer greater content monetisation and long-form video features in an attempt to tempt Youtubers over to the platform.

The new Twitter owner will offer greater content monetisation and long-form video features in an attempt to tempt Youtubers over to the platform.

Newly minted 'Chief Twit' Elon Musk will attempt to lure Youtube stars over to his newly-acquired Twitter, claiming he will offer them a better deal than Youtube’s monetisation model and give users the ability to create longer posts and videos.

Musk hinted at the new features in a series of tweets over the weekend. When US influencer Quinn Nelson tweeted that Youtube “gives creators 55% of ad revenue,” Musk replied, “We can beat that.” 

Content creator @Erdayastronaut earlier said he’d consider posting his full-length videos to Twitter given the right incentives to do so.

“If twitter could handle the full length feature videos that I produce and can offer a similar monetisation system like YouTube does, I would consider uploading my full videos here too for sure,” the user wrote.

Musk replied, “We can do 42 min chunks at 1080 resolution now for new Blue, so you could break up a longer video. The 42 min limit should be fixed next month.”

READ MORE: Elon Musk threatens to bring back Vine

The Tesla founder finalised the deal to buy Twitter earlier this month, swiftly executing plans to sack half the company and create sweeping changes for its 238 million users.

In a mass email sent last Friday, Musk fired about 3700 workers. Yet there were no forlorn workers streaming out of the offices carrying cardboard boxes. 

Instead a smattering of television camera crews and newscasters talked to cameras in front of an empty building.

Musk knew that triggering his corporate bloodletting while humans were in the building would look bad. So he turned off all building passes for the day and ordered everyone to stay at home: the dismissals would be done remotely.

Last week Musk confirmed Twitter will launch an updated version of the company’s Twitter Blue subscription service in which any user can pay US$8/month to get or remain verified. 

Musk framed the move as a way to break “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark.”

With The Times