Making competitive comparisons was one of my favorite things to do as a former IBM competitive analyst, especially when I was comparing businesses other than my own. This is due to the fact that, even in business, nobody likes to hear that their child is ugly.
Threads, which resembles a Twitter clone, is being introduced to consumers by Meta. An attempt like this would typically be unsuccessful because, in most cases, you can’t convince customers to switch from one service to another by simply providing something similar; instead, you need to successfully criticize the rival product.
However, Elon Musk has so many disgruntled customers that he runs a serious risk of losing them all to a competing service that doesn’t have Musk associated with it.
Let’s look at the upcoming conflict and the reasons it might be fatal for Twitter. I’ll wrap up with my Product of the Week, the new Alienware m18 gaming laptop, an incredibly potent laptop with a fantastic 18-inch screen.
IBM vs. Sun Microsystems
Starting with a comparable event from the past can be useful when analyzing a potential competition. A good example is the conflict between Sun Microsystems and IBM in the 1980s, which I personally witnessed.
In the 1980s, IBM came to the conclusion that since customers were unable to leave IBM due to their lock-in, IBM could take any action it pleased. I once raised this with my unit’s head of marketing as a major potential issue because surveys of our customers showed they were very displeased. It’s like selling air, he said, laughing at me. Customers are not given a choice.
However, Sun Microsystems was promoting a solution that wasn’t even effective but nevertheless came close to driving IBM out of business by offering a substitute. People were so fed up with being mistreated that they jumped at the chance with the help of Sun salespeople, who leaned in on IBM’s bad behavior and forced the change.
The changeover was neither quick nor simple, and as I’ve already mentioned, the replacement technology wasn’t quite ready. However, IBM, the world’s largest technology company at the time, nearly went out of business, fired its CEO, and had to deal with significant layoffs.
Since that time, IBM has earned a reputation as one of the industry’s most dependable vendors by keeping customers happy and avoiding customer lock-in, but it has never fully regained its former position of dominance.
The excessively high switching cost that was a part of the goods and services that IBM provided, in short, was what saved IBM and gave it time to recover.
Twitter’s issue is that it isn’t an enterprise vendor like IBM, where there are contracts and significant dependencies, making it challenging to switch between services. Even though alternatives like Mastodon, Truth Social, and others aren’t even close to being the same, Elon Musk’s changes to Twitter’s policies and operational procedures have driven away many users.
Twitter has been losing users rapidly. Every time it seemed like Twitter was going in a positive direction, Musk would make a decision that raised some eyebrows, driving more users away. Even though Twitter doesn’t produce its own content, the most recent decision restricts how many Tweets a user can read for free.
Additionally, Twitter’s policies have turned away advertisers at a time when there wasn’t a good substitute for the money spent on that ad. Ad spending tends to be effectively grandfathered once it becomes a regular practice by tying the advertiser to the media it uses.
Even though it can be challenging to attract advertisers at first, once you do, they will usually stick with you for a while, even if the ads are unsuccessful, unless you do something to annoy them. For advertisers, Twitter has increasingly become a dangerous platform.
The majority of these advertisers also advertise on other social media networks like Facebook, which makes it incredibly simple for them to end their relationships with Twitter and switch to Threads, which, in their eyes, comes from a known entity with less brand risk than Twitter currently seems to have.
Threads
Threads, which made its debut last Thursday, resembles Twitter almost exactly. Threads promises to treat Twitter users better by focusing on the issues that aggravate them the most. Even though Facebook has had issues, particularly with what seems like uneven moderation, it is still far less irritating than Twitter has grown to be.
Although there haven’t been any significant mass exodus from Facebook, it is clear that some people don’t trust Mark Zuckerberg or the company. Advertisers seem to be happier with Facebook than they are with Twitter, despite initial concerns about Facebook’s low conversion rates.
Because of the annoyance with Twitter, the low switching cost for users and advertisers, and the idea that Facebook is more, this new service may be the beneficiary of a perfect storm. dependable, stable, and trustworthy than Twitter.
There are, however, two possible drawbacks
Because it has undoubtedly happened before, Meta/Facebook may not have properly anticipated loading, and it is likely that enough users will quickly access the platform that it will crash. Although Meta should anticipate this given its extensive resource base, other businesses have experienced a similar issue only to discover that they had miscalculated how much data would be loaded. The consequent unreliability of the services at first delayed migrations.
Meta doesn’t market well or frequently, which is another problem. Migration rates could slow down without marketing. This drawback might initially work to Meta’s advantage, ensuring that the servers running Threads are not overloaded and won’t initially fail, given the prior issue and potential for overloading the service. If it hasn’t already crashed, we should know soon.
A conclusion is reached
Elon Musk’s management of Twitter has created a situation that is almost ideal for Meta’s Threads platform to do to Twitter what Facebook did to Myspace. If Threads can take the load (and that’s a big if), this perfect storm could make Twitter non-viable as a company, causing Twitter to lose more users and advertisers than it can withstand.
This failure will be highly noticeable, and it might affect the dependability and value of Musk’s other assets. It might also result in unfavorable media coverage of Musk. In other words, Musk’s other companies might start to second-guess having Musk as CEO if Twitter were to truly catastrophically collapse.
I anticipate it will occur fairly soon if it does, though. Before the end of the quarter, and perhaps even this month, Twitter and Musk’s future performance should be clear. Whatever happens, the upcoming weeks should be fascinating to watch and serve as a lesson that maybe challenging a rival to a cage match isn’t the best strategy for overcoming a significant competitive disadvantage.
I should also point out that this match is obvious to Zuckerberg. He’s already prepared for it, and Musk won’t be able to focus on developing a stronger Twitter defense while it’s going on. Musk is more important to Twitter’s defense than Zuckerberg is to Threads’ success, indicating that Zuckerberg is adjusting to his CEO role more successfully than Musk has.
Gaming laptop made by Alienware
A powerful laptop, the Alienware m18. It isn’t a cheap laptop, starting at $1,899.99, and it weighs almost nine pounds, which is more than a few of my lighter laptops put together do; the majority of my laptops are closer to three pounds.
The serious gamer who needs the power of a desktop computer in a more portable form should use this laptop.
This device’s 330W power adapter is enormous. I frequently consider whether it would be better for laptops in this category to come with an integrated power supply because the device is already heavy and a large, bulky power supply makes it more difficult to carry. If they were integrated, you wouldn’t have to juggle two bulky devices when moving it around; instead, you could attach a handle to the laptop and carry it as a single unit.
The other target market for a laptop of this size and power is the creative community, which includes animators, AI developers, game designers, some types of engineers, scientists, and researchers. These individuals don’t require software certifications to make sure the laptop will function (workstations typically do; gaming computers don’t); they also don’t need to be researchers.
Given that the m18 is a point-to-point device, it’s unlikely that you’ll even attempt to use it in a vehicle or on a flight. Even if you can figure out how to open it in that small space, the battery life is very short, and there is a good chance that the car or plane won’t have enough power to run the device.
However, compared to typically smaller laptop screens, the 18-inch screen is fantastic for trying to work on large projects while traveling.
This laptop’s advantages are demonstrated when compared to others in a benchmark. Despite the two-hour maximum gaming battery life, non-gaming (watching videos, etc.) can last up to four and a half hours. ), so perhaps you could watch movies on it while driving or flying.
The keyboard and silent fans really impressed me. When I wasn’t playing games, I really couldn’t tell it was on, and when I was playing games, I didn’t hear the noise. Because you need a mouse to play games, it does get warm when you’re using it, but I can’t imagine using it while gaming while sitting on my lap.
The lighting is another enjoyable element. This laptop is unlike any other on the market thanks to its adjustable design. The Alienware m18 is my Product of the Week because I’m impressed with this beast.