It has been two months since Mark Zuckerberg launched his so-called ‘Twitter-killer’ app Threads — which saw more than 100million users join in less than five days before plummeting in popularity.

But it now appears another rival app, Bluesky, could be the one to watch for X owner Elon Musk, after the platform amassed a record-breaking wave of signups in the wake of the billionaire’s threat to start charging users of his own social media site.

The figures, gathered by BlueskyStats, suggest that more than 53,500 users flocked to its app during the past 24 hours — roughly 40,000 above average.

However, the site’s total users – estimated to be around 1.1 million – still pale in comparison to X, formerly known as Twitter.

Musk revealed that his social media giant currently has around 550 million monthly users despite undergoing a series of drastic changes since his takeover last year, including the monetization of its blue tick verification system. 

There was further controversy and uproar yesterday, when the tech billionaire revealed he was considering charging all users to access the platform in a bid to ward off bots, or automated accounts. 

Jake Moore, a cybersecurity expert at ESET, told MailOnline that the increased popularity of Bluesky was both ‘inevitable’ and ‘predictable’.

‘Since it has arisen that users could be charged to use [X], the inevitable and rather predictable has happened with record sign ups to the Twitter/X alternative,’ he said.

‘The battle of the next Twitter has already commenced with a few in the ring such as Threads and Mastadon, too. 

‘However, the real test of time will be to see which platform wins the majority sway of users to take on the next generation of social networkers.’

Bluesky, which launched on both Android and iOS earlier this year, is backed by Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO Jake Dorsey.

It is a rare example of an invite-only social media app, with pre-existing users able to hand out invite codes to anyone interested in joining.

A waiting list is also available to those who don’t know anyone on Bluesky, with generated codes sent by email. 

Moore added: ‘Bluesky offers a sign up process to anyone with an invite code generated by those already on the platform.

‘This little feature cleverly keeps bots at bay as they struggle to automate mass signups which can cause security and misinformation issues.’

The invite-only component also sets Bluesky apart from X, as fake information and bots have been a major concern for Musk over the last few months.

It was revealed yesterday in a conversation with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as the tech entrepreneur announced his plans for future charges.

‘I’d say the single most important reason we’re moving towards having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is that it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,’ Musk said.

‘A bot costs a fraction of a penny, but if somebody has to pay a few dollars or something… you have to get a new payment method every time you have a new bot.

‘Prioritizing posts that are written by X premium subscribers, we’re actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing. We want it to be a small amount of money.

‘It’s a longer discussion, but in my view this is the only defense against vast armies of bots. As the AI gets really good it’s getting better at passing the captcha tests than humans.’

While Bluesky users can share images and follow accounts, they cannot send direct messages or post videos like X users. 

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is looking to introduce direct messaging to Threads in the not-so-distant future.

Threads’ popularity also rocketed following its launch on July 6, amassing more than 100million users by day five.

But data from last month suggests this initial popularity has since waned somewhat, with analysts at Global Wireless Solutions (GWS) claiming that daily users fell to just 430,000 in the UK.

However, following Musk’s latest comments on charging X users, Mr Moore believes that Threads could make a big comeback.  

‘Bots have been an issue on the platform since the beginning but when Musk laid off mass numbers of employees including security staff, the issue rose to rather uncontrollable lengths,’ he added. 

‘Requesting payment from all users could potentially mitigate this problem but he could have a bigger problem in his hands with a mass exodus of users.

‘With many similar alternatives already set up such as Threads and Mastadon, this could be the final push for some users to crossover to the competition.’

MailOnline has approached X for comment. 

What is Threads?

Threads is a new microblogging app that was launched by Meta Platforms at 7pm EST, July 5 and at midnight on July 6 in the UK.

It is a text-based conversation platform which is linked to Instagram, allowing users to follow accounts they are already interested in on the photo-sharing platform.

Users can share their point of view in thread-like posts that appear very similar to tweets.

‘Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,’ the App Store’s description reads.

‘Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.’

The app is available in 31 different languages, including but not limited to English, Traditional Chinese, Russian and Spanish.

Location and browser history is used to make Threads function, according to Meta’s terms of service. 

What does it mean for Elon Musk? 

Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads came just days after Elon Musk announced a temporary cap on how many posts a user can read on Twitter. 

Now, Twitter users who chalk up the $8 a month to become a verified user can view up to 6,000 daily tweets. 

Unverified users can see up to 600 tweets a day, and new unverified accounts can see up to 300 tweets a day.

Threads is likely to be a huge source of competition between Zuckerberg and Musk, with the pair already agreeing to a physical fight last month.

Just before the launch, Musk appeared to take a swipe at the new platform.

‘Thank goodness they’re so sanely run,’ he wrote in response to a group of Thread screenshots.

What personal data will Threads collect?

Threads collects 14 different types of data that may be linked to your identity.

Alongside location and browser history, this includes financial information, purchase history and even health data.

The App Store also suggests that identifiers and ‘sensitive information’ are collected too, in addition to personal contact data.

But data use can vary depending on your use of the features on offer.

A full list of its data collection is below:  

• Health and Fitness
• Financial Information
• Contact Information
• User Content
• Browsing History
• Usage Data
• Diagnostics
• Purchases
• Location
• Contacts 
• Search History
• Identifiers
• Sensitive Information
• Other Data 

How and when can you download it? 

Threads is free and is currently available for pre-order for users aged 12 and above on Apple’s App Store.

Mark Zuckerberg claims that a web version will be  available soon.  

• YouTube was hit by a worldwide outage starting around 4 pm ET
•  Issues were plaguing the website, app and the company’s streaming service
• The platform addressed the outage on X at 4:46 pm ET in a post 

By Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com

Updated: 17:13 EDT, 22 August 2023

Have you ever ordered the wrong food on holiday because you couldn’t read the menu?

Or perhaps you’ve found yourself wandering around a city for hours, unable to get to your destination because the signs weren’t in English. 

Well, a little-known app could save you from these two major holiday stresses. 

Google Lens is a free app, available on both Android and iOS, and is described as a ‘travel companion’ during the holiday season. 

It is essentially a real-life Google search and uses the built-in camera on a smartphone to scan and identify real-world objects. 

According to the Google blog website: ‘[It] can instantly translate the text in front of you, whether you’re looking at a menu or street sign. 

‘Point Lens at any text and it will automatically detect the language and overlay the translations right on top of the original words.’

You can find Google Lens in the Google app, it’s the tiny camera icon next to the search bar. 

Once you’ve tapped it you are given several options including ‘Search’ and ‘Translate’.

The app directly translates more than 100 languages, and will instantly detect the native dialect and translate it into the language of your choice. 

Many people have used it to solve their menu woes by simply hovering the camera above the menu and watching it ac

The travel hack has been well appreciated by TikTokers, who are only just discovering the feature. 

One user @TravelTok described the app as a ‘game changer,’ and demonstrated that it was quickly able to translate both medicines and food packaging. 

Another frequent traveller, who goes by the username @raimeetravels, showed how quickly the app can identify buildings or objects. 

Hovering her phone outside the entrance of Centre Pompidou Malaga, the app instantly gave Raimee the name of the contemporary art museum. 

Adding in the caption, she wrote: ‘My new favourite thing.’ 

TikTokers flocked to the comment section, grateful of the post, one said: ‘I used the translate option a lot last week in Japan. So helpful!’

The same feature is also available on the Google Translate app, which TikTok user Kate Bacon demonstrated. 

Posting a tutorial to her account @kbacon, she said: ‘You go to the Google Translate app, select your languages, click on the camera icon, and it will translate all of the text you see.’

The ‘quick and easy life hack’ was appreciated by her followers, who commented ‘Thank you’ and ‘That’s definitely been a tremendous help!’

Not only does Google lens work for travel, you can also sharpen your shopping skills. 

For example, if you see a random item you want, outside of the store, all you need to do is scan it and Google Lens will provide similar suggestions – all without having to articulate what you’re looking for. 

Mark Zuckerberg could launch his own rival platform to Twitter in the coming months, all part of his masterplan to capitalize off the chaos and user dissatisfaction under Elon Musk’s leadership.

Coding began at Facebook’s parent company Meta this past January on the new social app, codenamed Project 92, as Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox told a companywide meeting earlier this month. 

And big name celebrities are already in talks to commit their posts to the platform, including broadcasting legend Oprah Winfrey and Tibetan religious leader the Dalai Lama — a curious choice, coming in the wake of the Buddhist icon’s bizarre ‘suck my tongue’ incident this past spring. 

‘We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run,’ Cox told Meta employees, lobbing a thinly veiled criticism at Musk’s Twitter operations. 

The dig elicited cheers from Meta’s assembled staff, according to The Verge. 

The rich, the famous and the influential, Cox said, are desperate for a new platform ‘that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution.’ 

Reports suggest that the new app’s public-facing name could become ‘Threads’ and that it will feature a continuous scroll of text, just like Twitter, along with buttons akin to both the Like and Retweet functions. 

Threads will also hew closer to Twitter’s original 180-character limit, offering a slightly longer, but still short 500-character limit per post. As one social media industry inside put it, Threads will look ‘remarkably similar to Twitter.’

Many ordinary Twitter users, as well as the platform’s large community of scientific experts, academics and even former NASA astronauts, have also sought out alternatives in recent months.

Mastodon — a free, decentralized and open-source microblogging platform — has increasingly become a haven for scientists hoping for more level-headed conversations between themselves.

‘I have been much more active there than I have been on Twitter,’ astronomer Mark McCaughrean of the European Space Agency told Science late last year, following his own move to Mastodon. 

Many have described the platform as a more democratic alternative than Twitter, because Mastodon’s decentralized structure means that no single person, company or sever has full control of its operations.

Last November, Mastodon reported over 70,000 new sign-ups on a single Friday, in direct response to Musk’s finalized $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

‘If it becomes too toxic and abusive,’ Emory University virologist Boghuma Titanji also told Science amid Twitter’s raucous transition, ‘I will leave to preserve my well-being and consider other platforms.’

Former NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez vowed to jump from the platform as well, amid Musk’s plans to convert ‘blue check’ verification into a pay-to-play scheme, although Hernandez nevertheless remains an active tweeter to date. 

But Musk has also received praise by those, like Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican Senator John Kennedy on Capitol Hill, who see the billionaire as a champion of free speech for reinvigorating First Amendment rights on the platform.

Musk, Senator Kennedy said last December, had taken a ‘very courageous stand on the First Amendment’ since acquiring Twitter. ‘He’s tough as a pine knot.’

‘Project 92,’ which Cox explicitly described as ‘our response to Twitter,’ will integrate with Instagram’s current account system, allowing Instagram users to automatically transfer their followers and user information straight to the new microblogging site.

It will also integrate with Mastodon, and other decentralized platforms that use the same ActivityPub API system as Mastodon, Cox said. 

The design of the app, according to social media consultant Matt Navarra, ‘looks remarkably similar to Twitter,’ or really old Twitter, as Musk’s version continues to experiment with everything from longer posts, to newsletters, to exclusive live broadcasts. 

Navarra, who claimed internal knowledge of Meta’s plans, told the Sydney Morning Herald that Meta’s Twitter-killer could launch as soon as ‘the end of the month or beginning of next month.’

‘They have been onboarding people for a little while,’ Navarra said. ‘I know for a fact they’ve been talking to a British celebrity, and some US big name stars.’

That said, the only name disclosed by Meta’s chief product officer Cox as a lock for their new platform was the Minneapolis, Minnesota-native music producer DJ Slime, who Cox boasted had committed to using the app. 

Cox told company employees that Meta’s goal for ‘Project 92’ was to make an app that emphasized ‘safety, ease of use, reliability’ to ensure that creators had a ‘stable place to build and grow their audiences.’  

Meta, Cox said, will be making the app public ‘as soon as we can.’

There’s one thing no one wants to do in London‘s stifling 30 degree heat… and that’s take the Tube.

But fear not, travel app Citymapper has introduced a ‘With Air Conditioning’ feature that shows which modes of transport you should take if you want to beat the heat.

Brits have been facing soaring temperatures this month, with highs of 32C in some places.

But as the heat outside rises so too does the heat underground, where temperatrues on deeper-level Tube lines, like the Central and Bakerloo, can reach a stifling 32C – making for a rather miserable commuter-packed rush hour journey.

There are just four tube lines that currently have air-conditioning – Circle, Hammersmith and City, District and Metropolitan.

Other transport options in the capital that offer a breezy commute are the Overground, Northern City line, Elizabeth line, Thameslink and London Trams. 

Citymapper is a handy directions app for those trying to navigate the capital’s complicated travel network, with helpful features such as advising which carriages are busiest and which station exits to come and go from. 

The app gives you a list of suggested routes you can take – which can vary in duration and ticket cost. 

And you don’t have to use the app any differently to access its new air conditioning feature, as when you map directions to a destination it will automatically highlight which routes have air-con for the whole journey. This will be below the suggested routes.

To test its feasibility, MailOnline compared four cross London journeys to regularly-visited areas to see how the air-con routes stand up on price and journey-time. All journeys were mapped for the commute time on a weekday at 7am.

And the feature proved pretty successful, with the journey time and ticket price working out very similar to the non air-conditioned routes.

There was only one journey where going for the air-conditioned route was going to add more than 10 minutes to your journey – travelling from Ealing Common to London Bridge.

The quickest route Citymapper suggests for that journey takes 36 minutes and involves getting the Piccadilly line to Green Park, then changing to the Jubilee line.

But if you want to keep cool, the shortest air-conditioned route is to get the District line to Ealing Broadway, then change to the Elizabeth line to Farringdon, before jumping on the Thameslink to your final destination of London Bridge. But this journey still only takes 47 minutes.

And for one journey, travelling from East Putney to Shoreditch, choosing the route without air-conditioning will actually take you the same amount of time – and cost more. 

Scientists claim the rising temperatures – which resulted in Britain experiencing its hottest summer on record in 2022 – are ‘only the beginning’, so air-conditioned commutes might become more of a necessity. 

However TFL has said there are plans in place to introduce air-con on other London lines, including the Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Waterloo and City and Central.

New designs for Piccadilly line trains mean it could have air conditioning as soon as 2025.

But while the other three lines are due upgrades in the near future, there are no set dates as of yet. 

One of the reasons the majority of Tube lines – Central, Bakerloo, Victoria, Piccadilly, Northern, Jubilee and Waterloo and City – don’t yet have air-con, is that the systems are very old.

The tunnels were built in the Victorian era and have just enough room for the trains themselves to fit through.

And according to charity Engineering & Technology, this means there would be nowhere for the hot air pushed out of the carriages to go. This hot air would just heat up the trains even more.

Building new ventilation shafts would be expensive and the small tunnels don’t have enough room to bolt on large air-con devices.

The lines that have air-con are simply newer, so the tunnels were made large enough to fit the equipment. 

In order to fit the old Piccadilly line tunnel with air-conditioning, new train designs have reduced the number of bogies, structures holding train wheels in place, underneath. This extra space is to be used for air-con systems.  

It comes after the BBC revealed London Underground journeys are on the rise again, and now 90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. 

According to data from TfL, 91 million Tube journeys were made in April. This compares to 101 million for the same month four years ago in 2019. 

Journeys on the network have however risen by almost 12 million since the same time last year – when the country was still reeling from the effects of Covid. 

Saturday and Sunday are currently off-peak all day, resulting in a reduced fare, with peak times being Monday to Friday between 6.30am and 9.30am and between 4pm and 7pm.

After data showed that Fridays see 28 per cent less Tube customers than Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it was suggested TfL might make travel cheaper either side of the weekend. 

But responding to the claims, a TfL spokesperson said that there were currently no plans to change the timing of off-peak tickets.

It’s no secret that many of us would be lost without our favourite apps, allowing us to order food, taxis and find anything we want on demand.

But product designer Soren Iverson has taken these to the next level, sharing fake extra features that some may secretly wish were real.

From LinkedIn nepo baby warnings to ‘dad’ alerts on Instagram, Mr Iverson posts a new hilarious idea everyday for thousands of amused Twitter fans.

No stone has been left unturned in his creations, with many likely to polarise readers between disgust and agreeance.

So let’s see what you think. MailOnline has pulled together a collection of Mr Iverson’s wackiest app ideas to date.

LinkedIn nepo babies

Whether it’s Miley Cyrus or your sister’s best friend, it’s likely you’ve come across someone that has got ahead thanks to the influence of successful relatives.

But – rightly or wrongly – it’s not currently easy to identify the so-called nepo babies in a crowd of applicants. 

That’s why Mr Iverson has thought up a nepotism disclosure for LinkedIn flagging the relationships between people in the industry.

While this may be switched off for premium services, Mr Iverson suggests it could make the playing field fairer for job applicants.

In his newsletter, he wrote: ‘For better or worse, nepotism isn’t going anywhere. I’ve personally witnessed executives bring in family members or friends into roles other people worked for years to get.’

Dad Instagram warnings 

It’s not unusual to receive randomly bizarre direct messages from someone you’ve never clapped eyes on.

In the past month we’ve seen a flood of SHEIN scams on Instagram, with thousands of users bombarded with bot messages.

Others have received unsolicited nude pictures and even abusive messages. 

So what if Instagram had a feature to help moderate inboxes and scare unwanted attention away?

Last week, Mr Iverson pitched a ‘dad’ warning system for the platform, alerting potential messengers that all chats are overlooked by parents.

While the designer admitted this would create a lot of tension,  there’s no doubt that users would think again before sending a strange message.

He added: ‘Regardless, people are unhinged and thus will send others insane things via DM. This is especially true for single women out there who deal with this the most.’

Google Maps temptations

Directing users to food shops, petrol stations and post offices are among the numerous functions of Google Maps.

But Mr Iverson suggests the app could go further, using browser history to tempt you with food at the instant you felt hungry.

This alert was also pitched in one of his latest posts , flagging the nearest Taco Bell on route to another destination.

Although this could be a hazard while driving, the designer still acknowledges it could be valuable if customisable. 

Scarebnb

Staying in a new place can be a creepy experience, with unknown sounds and floorboards creaking in the middle of the night.

To prepare visitors for a spooky stay, Mr Iverson proposed the idea of Scarebnb – a spinoff of the holiday letting app we all know and love. 

With this, users could rank properties for their scariness and add a guestimate as to how many ghouls lurk inside.

He joked: ‘The pricing is laid out below the listing details, but you still have to tap a switch in the app today to see actual prices. To me, this is the scariest part of the whole experience.’

Uber Eats leftovers

There’s no doubt that many of us think with our stomachs when ordering food on Uber Eats – sometimes unable to finish the last bite.

But what if leftovers did not have to go to waste and could go on to satisfy the appetite of someone else?

In what would be a health and safety nightmare, Mr Iverson has pitched the idea of recycling ‘gently used’ food on Uber Eats.

This would come at a 60 per cent discount, labeled with safety and ‘freshness not guaranteed’ warnings.

Despite being quite gruesome, food waste is a huge problem in the UK, with Brits chucking out around 6.6million tonnes every year.

Some firms are tackling this in a much safer way, including  TooGoodToGo which shows users which restaurants have unsold food at the end of each day.

Netflix mental health recommendations 

After a bad day or breakup, many of us have turned to Netflix to binge away our problems.

Right now, the streaming app steps in to ask if you’re still watching after 90 minutes of film or three TV episodes.

But Mr Iverson proposes that Netflix could take another step to check in when people are feeling vulnerable.

He wrote: ‘What if there was an upsell to get in touch with a BetterHelp therapist to talk about whatever you might be avoiding by watching Netflix?

‘Many people binge shows, and not always for the best reasons.’

Posture checker

iPhone’s are currently well-equipped to monitor personal health, with step counts, sleep monitors and even medication planners.

Yet, Mr Iverson suggests that serial slouchers could be better helped with an added posture checker.

The designer even proposes that app usage could be cut down if phone owners fail to correct their posture as advised.

Numerous people jumped in on Twitter suggesting they would actually pay for this feature.

Another joked: ‘You’re supposed to make bad concepts.’ 

Social media has been flooded with numerous other app suggestions in the midst of Mr Iverson’s posts.

Smell detectors and outfit-choosing apps were among the numerous suggestions put forward.

One Twitter user said: ‘I wish there was an app that told you how busy a place is. I want to know how busy H‑E‑B is right now.’

Another added: ‘I wish there was an app that could smell a smell and tell me what smell it is.’

A new Chief Twit has entered office.

Elon Musk confirmed that NBCUniversal ad executive Linda Yaccarino will become Twitter‘s new CEO on Friday.

The tech mogul also heralded a transformation of the company into X,  Musk’s long-cherished moniker for an ‘everything app’.  

‘Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,’ Musk tweeted. 

But how much of everything will X be? And why ‘X’ exactly? Here’s what we know about Musk’s X plans. 

Musk has been fixated on the brand potential of X.com since at least the late 1990s, when he launched the site as an online banking start-up with co-founder Greg Kouri, a real estate developer and friend of his parents. 

But Musk lost control of X.com once the start-up merged with its fierce e-payments rival Confinity in 2000 — creating PayPal, and minting his fortune, in the process. 

Back on July 5, 2017, Musk repurchased the X.com domain from PayPal, explaining it had ‘great sentimental value’ to him.

Clearly, of course, Musk also sees great monetary value in X, hoping the symbolic weight of the infinitely changeable mathematical variable will help him build the ultimate app for all modes of human interaction. 

Payments  

This time last year, at the All-in Summit, Musk waxed admiringly Tencent’s WeChat, a colossal Chinese social media app that offers messaging and video chatting, video games, photo sharing, ride services, food delivery, banking, and shopping.

‘If you’re in China, you kind of live on WeChat,’ Musk has said. 

‘It does everything — sort of like Twitter, plus PayPal, plus a whole bunch of things, and all rolled into one, with a great interface. It’s really an excellent app, and we don’t have anything like that outside of China.’ 

With recent expansions to payment features on Twitter, it’s clear that Musk’s vision for X.com is sure to be an American rival to WeChat offering a similar buffet of internet services and features. 

Phone and video calls 

Earlier this week, Musk tweeted that new features enabling voice and video chat via users’ Twitter handles are currently in the works

Musk said Twitter users would soon be able to ‘talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number.’ 

The move could help Twitter compete with its social media rival Meta, which offers video chat services via Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp to its billions of users across the globe.  

Comparatively, Twitter had a reported 238 million monetizable daily users last July.

It’s clear that Musk has been gunning for WhatsApp’s market share, ever since the billionaire said the messaging service ‘cannot be trusted’ in response to claims by Foad Dabiri, Twitter’s current director of engineering. 

Dabiri had tweeted that WhatsApp had accessed his phone’s microphone while he slept.

Broadcasting and newsletters 

Under Musk, Twitter has already attempted to crowd into the paid newsletter space, sparring with market leader Substack and offering payment and subcription services to aspiring content creators.

But that’s only one step in Musk’s ambitions to expand Twitter as a media destination and not just a microblogging platform for discussing media elsewhere.

Although Musk has publicly stated that he did not ink a deal for former Fox News host Tucker Carlson to bring his show to Twitter, it’s clear that he had been encouraging media figures to do so on their own funding and initiative. 

Musk tweeted at ousted CNN host Don Lemon: ‘Have you considered doing your show on this platform? Maybe worth a try. Audience is much bigger.’

Dating next? 

Whether Musk was being serious or not, he has entertained his fans calls to add dating app features to the service, which YouTuber Steven Mark Ryan proposed as a solution to Musk’s concerns over declining birthrates.

‘Interesting idea,’ Musk responded, ‘maybe jobs too.’  

Although other social sites, including Facebook, have taken a stab at entering the dating app space, none have made a dent in market behemoth Tinder, which boasts having created 55 billion matches within eight years.

By comparison, since launching in 2019, Facebook Dating claims it had created over 1.5 billion matches in 20 countries.

Arguably, there’s no loftier, more difficult ambition than delivering ‘everything.’ 

But that’s exactly what X would have to achieve to succeed, crowding out rivals in multiple spaces, like dating apps, where market dynamics are already mature.

Sentimental value is one thing, but for X.com to rise again it’ll have to be more than just a passion project.  

Twitter users are calling on Elon Musk to develop an AI-powered dating app called ‘Twinder,’ touting it as the way ‘to save humanity from extinction.’

The idea came after Musk replied ‘population collapse‘ to a tweet showing how fertility rates keep dropping in Nordic countries.

The potential dating app, which the Twitter CEO deemed an ‘interesting idea,’ would use artificial intelligence to make matches instead of random swiping.

The suggested service would feed AI Twitter accounts, including posts, comments and likes, and the technology would look for another user with similar behaviors and interests.

The Twitter thread, viewed over two million times, has hundreds of comments, with some sharing how they met their partner on the social network.

The dating app pitch came from content creator Steven Mark Ryan, a YouTuber who posts videos on tech and finance news.  

‘When Twitter dating app? Might actually save humanity from extinction. Not even joking. Very low hanging fruit. Besides…. the EVERYTHING App, right? Ryan tweeted.

The post caught the attention of Kristen Ruby, president of Ruby Media Group and AI and social media analyst, who shared that she offered up the idea in April – tweeting, ‘Cool story Steven.’

Ruby’s April tweet details how Musk could design a dating app, as she suggested using AI.

‘@elonmusk could actually create the most intelligent AI dating app on the market due to sheer volume of data collected on users,’ she tweeted.

‘The matches would be based on data & AI instead of random swiping. It makes complete sense to me, I see the vision clearly.

‘He would be a fool not to create what I laid out.’

Musk said it would work for hiring, but this idea fell flat among users. 

One user replied: ‘Once people know Twitter is being used for Hiring, they will start auditing their behavior and before you know we have another LinkedIn.’

Ryan’s post was also met with people sharing how they met their partner on Twitter.

A user named Pope of Muskanity shared he had met his wife of five years on Twitter and included a picture of them on their wedding day. 

It is not clear if Musk will move forward with Twinder, but social media platforms launching a dating app have been done – and not successfully.

Facebook launched a service in 2019 hoping to give its users a fairytale ending, but it turned into an instant tragedy.

It was only a few weeks after the launch of the matchmaking feature, and users were already flocking to Twitter to share their not-so-positive experiences.

‘Man you thought tinder was full of ratchets wait til you see Facebook Dating,’ write @danlacewell. 

Facebook Dating does not require users to mutually ‘match’ before being able to connect. 

Instead, it lets participants browse profiles via a familiar card-style cue and interact with the ones that interest them. 

Another Twitter users said ‘So the Facebook dating app is like Tinder, but 5% less annoying”.

And a user shared pictures of those who ‘liked’ them, specifically David, who appears to be holding his shirt up to show off a gun tattoo on his stomach.

However, it seems things have improved on Facebook Dating since launching in 2019.

After less than two years online, Facebook Dating claimed it had created over 1.5 billion matches in 20 countries. 

To put that in perspective, Tinder has created 55 billion matches within eight years.

Revealed: Uber to launch flight-booking feature on its app this summer for UK users

By Ted Thornhill, Mailonline Travel Editor

Published: 01:22 EDT, 10 May 2023 | Updated: 05:36 EDT, 10 May 2023