X Touts File Excessive Utilization in 2024

So is X seeing roughly utilization, particularly within the wake of the U.S. election?

As a result of the reviews are extensively conflicted. Primarily based on third occasion insights, X is dropping thousands and thousands of customers each week, whereas different platforms like Threads and Bluesky proceed to realize traction.

But, X itself, which is the one supply of really correct X utilization data, continues to report document utilization, with its newest replace being that “lively person seconds”, its most well-liked efficiency metric, reached a document excessive in 2024.

As you may see, X claims that whole lively person seconds, per day, are up 10% year-over-year, whereas video views are additionally booming within the app.

So which is it? Is X stretching the reality with its knowledge, or are the third occasion analytics suppliers, which don’t have entry to X’s full knowledge set, getting the numbers fallacious?

First off, let’s have a look at X’s knowledge. 364 billion whole lively person seconds per day equates to 24 minutes per person, per day, primarily based on X having a reported 250 million every day actives.

That’s clearly so much, however it’s not as a lot as X claimed again in March, when it stated that customers are spending half-hour per day within the app on common.

So it’s troublesome to see how this may very well be a “document”.

X additionally claimed in March that it was seeing 8 billion cumulative lively person minutes per day, on common, which might equate to 417 billion seconds.

Now, X might have been seeing extra utilization earlier within the yr, which has eased again since, and settled into the above-noted 364 billion whole seconds on common. However both approach, primarily based on these knowledge notes, it’s possible that X is now seeing much less utilization than it had been.

24 minutes per person, per day can also be lower than the 38 minutes per day that customers had been reportedly spending on Twitter a couple of years again, so once more, it’s arduous to see how this may very well be a “document”, even accounting for variances in how Twitter calculated lively minutes versus how X is measuring lively seconds (Twitter reportedly counted any a part of a minute as an lively minute, so even utilizing the app for an additional second inside a brand new minute could be rounded up).

However it may very well be a document since X itself has been recording lively person seconds as a stat. Which is 2 years. So possibly, it is a year-over-year document, although I’m not even certain that might be correct, primarily based on the above reporting.

Utilizing X’s personal knowledge, it does look like X is seeing much less utilization over time, no more, but it’s re-framing this as a win.

Which is on theme for X, which recurrently reviews deceptive or cherry-picked knowledge factors. However it’s value additionally noting that whereas X is probably going seeing much less utilization than it had been, it’s nonetheless seeing loads of exercise, greater than most of the reviews which were touting the platform’s demise recommend.

And possibly, within the wake of Donald Trump’s victory within the Presidential Election, X might see a resurgence, as extra folks query whether or not the platform’s shift to a extra right-wing aligned perspective is as adverse a transfer as initially suspected.

With half of American voters supporting Trump, many manufacturers will now be questioning whether or not they need to head again to X with a view to attain a wider viewers, and that would make it a extra acceptable, and influential app as soon as once more.

However is X seeing document excessive utilization?

Look, I believe not, and that’s occurring X’s personal reporting, and there are undoubtedly questions on its various knowledge factors on this respect.

And once more, with reviews additionally suggesting that thousands and thousands of persons are leaving the app (which can also be not less than partially supported by X’s personal reporting), it does look like X is declining to a point.

However once more, possible not as a lot as you’ll count on.