Starlink purchases 'Twitter takeover' ad package, Musk dismisses it as 'tiny' Between trying to convince advertisers to keep faith in Twitter and firing engineers for public insubordination, Elon Musk yesterday admitted that one of his other businesses, SpaceX, had bought an ad campaign through the social media website. Though the recursive move was described by crypto news site Watcher.Guru as "large" …
...should give cause for regulators to start paying attention.
Of the many things regulators should be looking at, I don't think this is one of them. For a Musk-move, it kinda makes sense given he's on both sides of the transaction and can look at how effective the campaign is. I suspect the answer will be 'not very' given Aussies aware of Twatter are probably also aware of Starlink.
Of course he may not like the answer, especially as he needs to boost both ad and Starlink revenues. There have been a number of articles over the past few years pointing out that social media is a pretty lousy way to spend advertising budgets.
They couldn't have chosen a worse country than Spain to advertise satellite Internet. Even if you live out right in the sticks the absolute minimum is 10 Mbps broadband and the usual is 50 Mbs 4G/5G/Fibre/WiMax. If you live in a town or a city then 300-1000 Mbs is available.
Oh, and a Telsa just had a brake failure and killed two people. Can't have anything to do with skimping on the tests.
Was just going to post the same, except out here in the proper sticks there is sod all of anything, hence I have Starlink. Starlink did ask me why they couldn't sell the thing in Spain and I gave a very similar reply. Here they have fibre the diameter of sewer pipes going everywhere, for around 30 euros a month, inc 2 mobile contracts. To the Spanish, the internet is the new way to watch footie. If you want proper info, you speak to people in a bar.
By the descriptions given by Musk fans that Frohnhoefer's tweets were "lashing out with emotion", rude and didn't provide any factual answers. "Bad mouthing his boss" - another one of those UK/US things, as I missed where Frohnhoefer used the word "prat" (or equivalent).
Are we getting individualised Twitter results that means those people are reading some other tweets attributed to Frohnhoefer?
Fans also saying that he should have just replied with "Yes, Sir, 100% agree with you, Sir?". So the "disruptive engineers" that Elon hires should be disruptive lickspittles!
Aaargh, no, no, this has got me clicking on the "Show this thread" links now. Can't look away. Must look away. It's too late for me, run, save yourselves.
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there's been another round of layoffs for people who have not shown sufficient loyalty to Musk
If we accept that some traits are genetically inherited there must be some shared ancestry between the orange clown and Musk. The fun part of this is that that attitude actually absolutely ensures he will end up without the very people capable of fixing the mess he and his big mouth got himself into.
I must stock up on popcorn.
The ones who know what's going on have likely been there a while and are pretty smart (probably they all are but some are smarter than others) which makes them extremely hireable in Silicon Valley.
That makes it easy for them to quit (whether quietly or deliberately in a flame of glory after roasting Musk) knowing they will quickly get, or perhaps already have, another job.
It will be only the ones who aren't very talented and fear for their future if they leave who will stick around and kiss ass, telling Musk what he wants to hear even if it isn't remotely true. It will be funny to see prolonged Twitter outages in the near future as it will be only B Ark people left to run things, and Musk increasingly flailing about trying to assure the userbase everything is OK and they shouldn't be scrambling for the lifeboats before the SS Musk sinks under the waves.
Then we'll get to enjoy the irony as he blames everyone else for his totally self inflicted failure.
flame of glory after roasting Musk
I've read a number of articles about this, and I haven't seen anything attributed to Eric that would be out of line, and in many ways it would be expected, if the forum had been different. For example, a tech meeting with new management to discuss why an app is under performing. But Musk chose a public twitter rant to throw his team under the bus.
OTOH, looking at Eric's recent tweets he's obviously not happy with the direction Twitter is going. So if I were in charge I would have told HR to tell him that they are going to let him go so he can find a position that is a better fit. Everything we're hearing from Musk points to him making the work environment toxic. Life is too short to work 80 hr weeks only to have your boss tell you that you suck.
Maybe Super Musk will learn Android programming in his free time and single handedly save Twitter.
> I would have told HR to tell him that they are going to let him go so he can find a position that is a better fit.
*Really* hoping that you are just using that wording because you know how that is how HR would end up phrasing it!
I find that kind of mealy mouthed wording absolutely infuriating and totally spineless.
"Let him go": especially in the US with the "at will" concept, there is no "letting" - saying "bugger off" is frankly politer than hearing that phrase.
"So he can find a better fit": if he felt there was somewhere he could better work, he could find it without being chucked out the door and having to look whilst bring unemployed (which is really going to help his negotiations, isn't it). Just say "we're fed up with you, please go away", at least that has a ring of honesty about it! Saying "please go away within the next month or we'll chuck you out the door" would be best.
*Really* hoping that you are just using that wording because you know how that is how HR would end up phrasing it!
It's called a euphemism, look it up. But yes, I chose the phrasing because it's HR Speak.
Having said that, with the bluntness of Musk's "He's Fired!" tweets, I have no problem with the conversation pendulum swinging back the other way a little. In my career I have been laid off twice, and both times it was "your position has been eliminated".
Take this into account, someone has worked for the company for years, and likely has had to sweat blood on at least one project. Now the company has had an extreme change of culture and what you did yesterday means absolutely nothing today. Legally, yes in the US we are largely "at will". Even if you don't have the capability of human compassion, you should probably consider the visual aspect and it's effect on the people you do want to keep.
And maybe an even better approach would be to understand why people who have been with the company 8 years have such low morale that they feel the need to act out.
You do not have to read every single article. You are allowed to skip the ones with 'Musk' or 'Twitter' in the title.
I am still enjoying watching the train wreck. Every day it continues is a day that professional rocket scientists can make progress on Starship without the help that Twitter staff are currently enjoying. I am sure it will get dull for me eventually and I will signal my waning interest by not reading more about Musk / Twitter. That is a hint that the Register staff understand. You can contribute to a reduction of articles like this one by doing absolutely nothing.
According to Twitter : "Takeover products give you exclusive ownership of Twitter's premium real estate across desktop and mobile, allowing you to maximize your reach and drive results across the funnel."
As opposed to the ultra-premium version of Twitter Takeover, which costs $44 billion, and gives you exclusive ownership of Twitter's premium real estate across San Francisco, allowing you to drive results across the funnel, up the spout, and down the drain.
The Grammarly ads do manage to achieve a particularly obnoxious strident tone, which coupled with their choice of chipper Bright Young Things as models makes them impressively grating.
"Do you ever write anything? Would you like your writing to be filtered so it is devoid of style, voice, and interest by a collection of half-assed heuristics derived from ill-considered schoolmarmish style guides? You need to download Grammarly immediately! Do it now! I SAID NOW."
I have various writing-related degrees and used to teach writing, so my opinion of Grammarly (and the built-in "grammar checkers" in Word and the like) is not high to begin with; but I'm certainly not taking usage, diction, and particularly style advice from a company that produces advertisements to such poor rhetorical effect.
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