A visionary is someone who can see further down the road or higher in the sky than the next.
An example of the road analogy is Tesla. When you combine an environmentally friendly great ride with soon-to-be driverless-ready capability fostered by a huge helping of cash from your government you’ve got an industry changer.
An example of the sky analogy is SpaceX. Its stated goal is reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars and eventually other planets. Last month a forty-story-high rocket flew beyond the company’s expectations. That’s not huge that’s YUGE.
Can Elon Musk go three for three? He bought Twitter to ensure that there was at least one platform where free speech was indeed free. Noble. But, it’s doubtful that he bought it for just that or to lose money.
You’ve heard it uttered before. “He’s playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.”
Once upon a time, people gathered around a radio in their living rooms to hear their news, sports, and entertainment.
The television changed that. Three black-and-white networks became three colorful ones.
Cable changed that. Three networks became hundreds of channels and even some premium ones like HBO.
Satellites changed that. And soon the choices were too many to choose from.
Enter Al Gore’s internet and streaming started. Now you can stream any platform on many platforms.
Watch what you want, when you want, how you want, and on whatever you want. Jump into your La-Z-Boy and click on an app, any app, or many apps.
There’s vision and there’s television.
And then there is Twitter and Elon.
After cutting dead-weight employees and charging for blue check marks, the next shoe is dropping. Enter Tucker Carlson. And, with that, we enter yet another new era.
Will it be called a podcast? A live stream? Premium content? Pay-per-view? It matters not.
Can you imagine Twitter on TV? Of course you can, it’s already there. You can watch live programming from Twitter on Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. Xbox and Android TV users can enjoy Twitter by launching their web browser and going to twitter.com.
So, is Twitter TV, or is TV Twitter? Yes and yes. Or for that matter call it whatever you want. There is content and there is distribution. And there is a vacuum when it comes to unfiltered content. The free market gets to decide what misinformation and disinformation is.
The “networks” will soon remind you of the pay phone. Once upon a time, you could make a long-distance call on a pay phone thanks to long-distance providers. ABC, NBC, and CBS soon will have much in common with Sprint, Cingular, and MCI.
Twitter has the distribution, subscribers, tweeters, followers, and advertisers, and now has its first piece of serious content worth taking from the old world. It won’t be its last.
It must have promise. CNN wrote yesterday, “Who will fact-check Tucker now that he is on Twitter?” AOC tweeted (oh the irony), “Twitter, brought to you by MyPillow.”
Wait till Don Lemon signs on with Elon.
Checkmate? Not yet.
But content is king.
And, soon Elon will be wearing a crown.